


Adventures of the Dead

by tbiris



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Long Shot, No DLC, Reincarnation, Serious at Times, Silly at Times, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 49,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5038132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tbiris/pseuds/tbiris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard made her final choice on the Citadel, knowing that she wouldn't survive.<br/>Yet her choice can give them a last chance to all be together in a new life. If they can wait that long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really excited to finally be posting this!
> 
> In a way I guess this is my way of 'fixing' the ending. It was supposed to be a plain reincarnation AU until my brain ran away with me. There will be another work eventually that _is_ the actual reincarnation bit.
> 
> I do have a fair bit written, however school and work is currently kicking me and my beta (the lovely Resmiranda13) in the pants. So until we can build up enough of a buffer for ourselves, updates will be once a month. Maybe less if the suspense is killing me.
> 
> I should stop talking now. I hope you enjoy!

 She once heard that death was just the beginning, another adventure. The only thing that was glossed over was how much it hurt to die. She was tired and her body ached. Each breath was a labour, forced against the pain to keep her alive. Something told her she should hold on and ignore the pain, but it coupled with exhaustion and ate at her slowly. She wondered what her hand was holding and let go, barely hearing the clatter. Each breath hurt, so she let exhaustion slow it down so her body wasn’t wracked with immense pain each moment. Her eyes began to drift closed to block out the red seeping around her and she wondered just why she was trying to stay awake. She couldn’t remember the reason as her body screamed at her to let go. She let her breathing stop, and the pain pull her through the darkness. The very memory of her last death only strengthened Death’s grip on her.  
   
  _Did you think I would give up so easily?_ Death’s voice echoed all around her.  
 She didn’t. Her actions saved those she loved; at least she hoped they had. That was all that mattered, all she cared about.  
  _They will regret, but they are fine._  
 Death seemed a little cheesed off at her, but it hadn’t been her choice then to live.  
  _You have a choice now. They took you back into limbo before I could offer it before._  
 She didn’t care. It hurt too much, she couldn’t think. There was only pain.  
  _That isn’t my fault._ Death echoed her. _Will you come quietly?_  
 Words echoed in her mind, something about a raging night, even as she nodded and the pain faded away.  
   
 “Commander!” Ashley’s voice called to her and her eyes popped open. “Thank God,” the chief continued. “All these guys said they knew you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll believe it.”  
 Shepard blinked and sat up slowly. The room seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place for a while until it clicked. It seemed that she was in the medbay of the SR1.  
 “It would seem AIs do in fact have souls.” EDI’s voice echoed around her, a pleased tone to her voice. “Unfortunately I don’t have access to a mobile platform.”  
 “What…?” Shepard’s eyes cast around the room. There was Mordin, Legion, Thane, Miranda, Anderson… it seemed like the crew of the SR1 was here as well, but few of her current crew. There was something wrong about that, but she couldn’t place it.  
   
 “You are deceased,” Legion stated. “The feeling is normal during the adjustment period.”  
 “Adjustment period,” Shepard repeated flatly.  
 “I took the reassignment when I could.” Ashley smiled slightly. “Dad understood.”  
   
 Shepard took in the entire room slowly, questions slowly mulling in her head. She straightened slightly and glanced around the room before deciding.  
 “Ashley, report.” If she was dead, Ashley had been here the longest of them all.  
 Ashley mimicked her pose. “Death likes to make us comfortable while we’re here, ma’am. At least until we make our choice and things are ready.”  
 “Choice?” Shepard’s eyebrows drew together.  
 “Typically given when you pass into my care.” A voice whispered.  
 Shepard reached for her non-existent gun, as did Ashley. The hair on the back of her neck prickled slightly. The voice wasn’t a threat right now, but given everything she could forgive herself for being a little jumpy.  
   
 “My apologies,” Death whispered. She could almost sense a smile in the pitch black corner. “I would have used the communications systems, however I wouldn’t want to infringe on EDI’s space for too long.”  
 “Thank you for your respect,” EDI chirped.  
 Shepard felt rather than saw Death’s lowered head.  
 “A choice is given to many souls. You can stay until your final sleep, or you can return under your own power.” Death explained.  
   
 Ashley nudged her slightly and whispered. “You had outside help. I had to listen to the rants about soul mechanics for two years.”  
 “When Cerberus rebuilt me,” Shepard whispered. They could go back? All of her crew living a different life?  
 “Yes, well…” Death seemed embarrassed. “There is a first time for everything, and _his_ path back will be far more difficult than yours. That was before your choice though, so I cannot fault you. You probably remember why it’s a horrible idea now.”  
 Shepard shuddered and nodded. She died twice when Death brought her through this time. Neither time had been pleasant and both of them at the same time, well it was no wonder that she couldn’t hear his question properly.  
 Death nodded. “Do you have any questions?”  
   
 Shepard straightened. She had questions, but she wasn’t certain which ones she should ask. “Can you explain that choice some more?”  
 “Certainly.” Death was definitely amused. She could see the crew leaning forward a little, elbowing each other a little so they could all hear.  
 “What?” she glanced around at them. Surely asking Death a few things wasn’t that strange and only EDI was new as well.  
 “Explanation was avoided earlier. Awaiting certain conditions. No further information. Only rumours,” Mordin supplied.  
 “A certain… fortitude is required before I like or have to answer questions,” Death shrugged. “Or accomplishments.”  
 “And saving the galaxy is up there?” Shepard asked wryly.  
 “Somewhere with saving space and time.” Death paused. “That was a joke. The journey changes with the people involved. It’s easiest on one’s own and gets more difficult with each person on the voyage.”  
   
 “What’s the point of this trip?” Shepard pressed.  
 “Reincarnation.”  
 Shepard snorted. “We wouldn’t be the same. Different places, different times… there’s no way I want to forget everything.” Not when she worked so hard for it. Not when she was missing some _one_ here right now. She had broken her promise to him, and she wanted to remember it.  
 “Truly? You never wanted to forget Alenko’s words on Horizon? Going hungry on Earth’s streets? Having to choose who lives and who dies?” Shepard’s heart beat faster. She clenched her hands. She hated those events, but they shaped her.  
 “Why do you bother asking?” she hissed.  
   
 Death was definitely amused and she was fairly certain that Ashley and Mordin were cursing her irritability with Death.  
 “It matters,” Death shrugged. “But that is a consequence of travelling _alone_.”  
 She stared at the corner. Death wasn’t trying to be subtle at all. She almost wanted to laugh  
 “What happens if it’s a group?”  
 “It isn’t advised,” Death repeated blandly. “Even groups of two have difficulty, very few manage the trip in a group. Individual success rates are much higher.”  
 “Tell me.” Shepard crossed her arms.  
 Death was smiling as the answer echoed through the room. “You would retain memories relating to each other.”  
   
 The medbay exploded in noise at the revelation. She was vaguely aware that Death left the room, possibly irritated by the sudden cacophony. Ashley’s grip on her shoulder was growing almost painful.  
 “Okay, break it up!” Shepard’s voice reverberated through the room. “Posts, and everyone make a list of further questions phrased so I can understand them.” She let her eyes rest on Mordin and Legion. “We have far too little information,” Shepard softened her voice. “But I would like us all to go together, as a full crew. Those that want to.” Ashley’s grip slackened and the medbay slowly emptied and the voices filtered through to different areas of the ship.  
   
 The only one that stayed with her was Ashley. She hoped that it was for more information, but the look on the chief’s face suggested otherwise.  
 “I don’t think I waited long enough for you, Skipper.” Ashley’s voice was wooden.  
 “Well destroying Reapers would do that to a person.” Shepard shrugged, not meeting her eyes.  
 “Why?”  
 Shepard’s eyebrows drew together. That didn’t sound like a ‘why did you die’, but more like Ashley knew about the choice she had been offered. No one had been in the area when she had to choose.  
 Ashley continued. “Death let me watch you on the Citadel. I spent two _years_ watching your body in here until you disappeared. I think…”  
 “You knew I might die. I knew I might die went I went up there,” Shepard sighed. She stared at Ashley for a moment as the information clicked through her brain. “Wait, you could _watch_ me?”  
   
 “Death was watching,” Ashley corrected, her arms drew behind her into a parade rest. “I was just… watching over his shoulder. Why Skipper? You could have made it so the problem would never happen again.”  
 “I’m not good enough for that.”  
 “Bullshit!” Ashley paced around the room, refusing to look at Shepard.  
 “This instance is fixing itself!” Shepard hopped off the bed to block Ashley’s path, forcing her gaze upward. “We were working it out. Tali knew the geth weren’t so simple, she was trying to change things.”  
 “Now the quarians don’t have to because the geth are dead.” Ashley’s eyes were drawn and there was a slight downturn to her mouth.  
 “How do you know _I_ wouldn’t make the same mistake?” Shepard heard her voice crackle. When the Conduit made her choose, she wished someone else had been with her. She felt like a piece of trash being buffeted in the ocean when she had to choose, all she could do is pick which rock to smash herself against. “How would you know that turning into an AI wouldn’t change me? That I wouldn’t lose my mind when everyone died around me? I couldn’t turn everyone into a mesh. Not… not without talking to anyone.” Shepard’s voice did break on the last word. She had been afraid. None of her choices offered any guarantee. Without the Reapers, it was possible for synthetic and organic war to run unchecked. However, her choices had always been influenced by the people around her. They called her a leader, but at heart she always felt like a coward. A lucky coward.  
 “I’m sorry, Skipper.” Ashley enfolded her in a hug. “I didn’t think… I didn’t realise…” Both of them sniffed.  
   
 Ashley let out a watery laugh. “You know, that was the only decision where you’d get to meet us all again.”  
 “Is that why Death likes me?” Shepard choked.  
 Ashley shrugged and took a respectful step back. “I’m not sure ma’am. It would be best to ask… him? Her?”  
 Shepard laughed, feeling tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.  
 “I’ll add that to my list of questions ma’am. It… it is good to see you again.” Ashley gave her one last hug and stepped back to salute her.  
 Shepard nodded, tears still pouring down her face, and watched her old crew member walk out the door.


	2. A Moment of Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Shepard tries to get used to being dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy N7 day! The expected length is subject to change to become shorter (hopefully not longer) but I have the rough chapter outline now.

 After spending so long on the SR2, it took Shepard more time than she thought to get used to the SR1 again. She did laugh more than once at EDI’s own complaints about the layout. It did take a long time to get used to a completely new body, even if it was your own.  
   
 It wasn’t just the layout that took getting used to. She was still trying to get used to the understaffed ship. Although, in this case she wasn’t sure if it was really a complaint since it meant that the SR2 got clear of the blast. EDI reassured her that they would know when the SR2 was decommissioned. Death had promised her her normal body back when it was available.  
 “How did you make it here before me?” Shepard asked suddenly. A few minutes would make sense to Shepard, but EDI had inhabited the ship for at least a full day before Shepard woke up.  
 “We were informed there were additional complications with your death.” EDI’s clinical voice was oddly reassuring.  
 “What complications?”  
 “I don’t have the data in that respect, however there are some—”  
 “Just tell me, EDI,” Shepard sighed.  
 “You didn’t fully die the first time is the primary assumption. It would follow that when you died you were dying twice. The memory of both deaths confused your soul.” EDI paused. “That is my theory. Legion and some of the crew have alternate theories.”  
   
 Shepard would have been surprised if there weren’t several theories floating around. Her issue was trying to find people to ask. “EDI, where are most of the crew members?”  
 “It’s the scheduled communication day,” EDI explained. “Transfers, temporary or permanent, may occur and communications between different areas may occur.” There was a beat before EDI continued. “Is there anyone you would like to contact Commander?”  
 Shepard stared at the wall blankly. It didn’t even occur to her that they might be able to talk to dead family or friends. Not that it mattered. Everyone that she cared about was either on this ship or alive. She frowned, it was odd that suddenly ‘being alive’ felt like a bad thing, something she would have to try to fix in her thinking.  
   
 “It does take some getting used to.”  
 Shepard jumped at Death’s voice, Death seemed particularly capable of sneaking up on her.  
 “Don’t you have a bell or something?” Shepard complained, placing her hands on her hips.  
 “Chief Williams suggested that as well,” Death was definitely amused. “I’m afraid I’m not… overly fond of high degrees of excitement, so I thought a quieter time might be more appropriate for any more questions.”  
 “I have recorded discussions between crew and logged files of questions for your perusal, Commander,” EDI suggested.  
 “Thanks EDI. Download to my…” she trailed off. Did she still have her omni-tool? She tapped her wrist and felt a wave of relief as the familiar screen popped up. It pinged as EDI shared the information gathered by the crew. She assumed some of the weirder questions came from the crew that had been here longer, which she set aside for later.  
   
 “I expect you’ve been busy,” she started casually as she started to sort the questions into categories. It would take her a while to sort the data properly.  
  “It was expected,” Death replied politely. “I knew it would be coming. Like clockwork really.” She stared up at the black corner. She couldn’t tell if Death was relieved or annoyed that she had destroyed the Reapers.  
 “How long do people have to decide?” That question had been bothering her almost as long as she had been up.  
 It felt like Death shrugged.  
 “So no one here decided?” she stared at the corner incredulously.  
 “Most like to take at least some time to catch up before they decide. Learn how family made out, if lovers managed to move on…”  
 Shepard flinched slightly. Part of her hoped that Kaidan would be able to move on, even though she knew what her first death had done to him.  
 “If he shows up here anytime soon he’ll regret it,” she muttered to herself.  
 “Time works a little strangely here, but I believe EDI is calculating estimated times of death for the rest of the crew.”  
 “So far, the greatest likelihood is Medical Officer Chakwas will join us next. At that time I will be able to offer a better perspective in regards to the rest of the crew,” EDI offered.  
 “Is that taking into account psychological states?” Shepard drawled.  
 “I project that Jeff and Kaidan will support each other in the initial stages of grief.” EDI sounded regretful. “After which I suspect they will continue to work whenever possible.”  
 “I’m still going to kick some asses if I find out someone checked out early because of the Conduit,” Shepard grumbled. She glanced at Death’s corner.  
   
 “How does the entire talking thing work anyways?”  
 Death shrugged again. “Different people have different places they prefer to stay. However, they still may have desires to visit certain people or places to talk. Those that stay and wait move around a fair bit more than those that plan to journey.” She felt that Death was hinting at more information, but she felt like there was something different she had to figure out first.  
 “How do you know who goes where?”  
 Death snorted. “I don’t. They do, or they figure it out. Ashley Williams would be able to tell you more.”  
 Shepard raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.  
 “Intimidation doesn’t work on me.” Death sounded irritated. “I don’t know details because I’ve never been on the receiving end. I know how it’s supposed to work, but as you know, supposed to doesn’t mean does.”  
 “Fine.” Shepard deflated. “I’ll ask Ashley.”  
   
 “You have time to choose, Shepard.” Death’s words were cautious. “But the longer you stay, well… it isn’t always easy to leave.”  
 “Reincarnation takes at least a century from the stories,” Shepard prodded.  
 “It takes however long it takes. Some more, some less.” It definitely sounded like Death was starting to get irritated with her, hell if she knew why.  
   
 “Why did you let Ashley watch me choose?” If he wanted to be irritable, she could be just as irritating back. Death seemed rather uncomfortable with the question. The space in front of her seemed to wobble a little.  
 “Is it something you do for anyone?” she pressed. The space wiggled even more, almost as if Death was debating to cross a line or not. She was tempted to push further, except that she had to remember that this entity was trying to help her. She was on Death’s good side for now and it seemed a little early to blow that bridge. Death might be helping her now, but that certainly wouldn’t always be the case.  
 “You are a unique case,” Death said carefully. “There are very few that… no one… no.” Death shook its head. “Telling you that much may negatively affect you at this time.”  
   
 Shepard stared at the space. There was definitely some sidestepping happening.  
 “Fine, but you’ll let me know later?”  
 Death’s head dipped.  
 “Just a personal question, I still need to sort through some questions from the crew as well.”  
 “Of course,” Death murmured. “I’ll return for those with the next person that comes here.”  
 Shepard nodded slightly. It still felt slightly odd to have a part of her _wishing_ for people to die, even with her quashing it whenever she heard it.  
 “How do you identify yourself?”  
 A beat. “Pardon?”  
 “Well we just keep calling you Death, but pronouns…” she waved a hand at the air. “So if you have a name and whatever you like to be called.”  
 “Oh.” Death relaxed slightly. “It never really…”  
 “Really?” Shepard’s eyebrows raised. There had to be more curious people around here than just her crew.  
 “Not many delay their choices for long, or get your level treatment.”  
 “So no one’s thought to ask in their short time.” Shepard tapped a foot.  
 “I will consider the question. Your crew is returning.”  
 Death’s presence disappeared, leaving her and EDI to mull over Death’s delighted surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Later chapters will be a bit longer, the first two are on the short side. I hope to see you next month!


	3. Time and Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard learns a little more about her surroundings and does some reminiscing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice there's a 'total number of chapters' now. It may change as it goes but that's my outline thus far. I hope you enjoy it all :)

  “You just _asked Death?_ ” Ashley’s eyes were wide.  
 “Cut straight through the problem, as always.” Anderson chuckled at what little information she’d obtained.  
 “Most interesting,” Mordin mused. “Perhaps Death a VI? No, no, far too complex, elaborate. Pre-existence issue as well.”  
 Shepard shrugged and let him continue rambling while she took in the crowd. Most of Shepard’s attention was drawn to the faces she didn’t know. She supposed they were the temporary or permanent transfers that EDI mentioned earlier. She had hoped to debrief to just the crew she knew, but information had a way of bleeding through everywhere. She figured that they would all be introduced later, especially given some of the awed looks she was getting at the moment.  
   
 “You would have to okay anyone coming with you.” Ashley’s voice broke her reverie.  
 “Pardon?” Shepard turned to stare at her. She wasn’t sure what Ashley meant by ‘come with’.  
 “The transfers, you’re thinking about if they’d go with you for the trip and how that would work.”  
 Shepard shrugged. She glanced over at Anderson and Mordin arguing about Death, or it seemed they were arguing if it mattered what Death was.  
 “First day and all, can you blame me?”  
 Ashley fidgeted a little. “It’s… not really the first day.”  
 “There’s a time differential then? How long has it been?” Shepard waved it off. Just because the Normandy used to run off of Earth time didn’t mean that Death would mimic that aspect.  
 “One Earth year for people that are alive is one Earth day for us.”  
 Shepard closed her eyes. That was a lot longer than she had expected. The humans had another seventy days or so then. The longest would be Liara, for another thousand days.  
   
 “That’s…” Shepard looked at Ashley.  
 “Yeah, it takes a while. It feels like a long time after a while though. I guess we aren’t really supposed to linger around here much. So it feels like almost no time until your friends are here and what have you.” Ashley leaned forward. “I was so pissed off, it felt like I went to water the garden and then Presley and a quarter of the crew were with me on the Normandy. I was _in the garden_ at my dad’s home and woke up here.”  
 “I didn’t think that ships would be considered…”  
 “Dead? Yeah, not sure if I really want an answer for that but your AI seems happy.”  
 Shepard stared at Ashley. There was a bitterness there that she couldn’t place; until she remembered that the last time she saw Ashley they had been fighting geth.  
   
 “A lot happened Ash.”  
 “I’d hope so skipper. I can’t believe that you actually had a geth on your _ground team_. What were you thinking? And an AI on your ship? _What_ were you thinking?” Ashley didn’t really sound angry. Shepard eyed her for a moment, Ashley sounded more frustrated about it than anything.  
 “Well, the first one was interesting.” Shepard started. “Legion saved my life on a Reaper ship—”  
 “Wait, you were on—”  
 “Yeah.” Shepard rolled her neck around. “Just before I jumped through the Omega 4 relay.”  
 Ashley sat back and stared at her. “I thought our team was crazy then, Shepard but…”  
   
 Shepard looked around at the variety of people milling around, with more than a few shooting glances her way. “Yeah seems like I keep going from end of the world to another one.” Shepard’s laugh was weak even to her. “Seems like Death and I were courting the entire time.” The thought of that sounded weird now that she thought about it. She could picture Kaidan holding tightly to one of her arms, holding her to life and Death holding the other with the two tugging at each other, tearing her apart.  
   
 “That’s… a disturbing image, Commander.” Ashley’s brows drew together.  
 “Yeah I know.” Shepard grimaced. “How about you try introducing me to some of these new faces so that I can get that image out of my head?”  
 “Who were you thinking of just then?” Ashley sounded almost pleased, like a grand mystery solved itself.  
 “What do you mean?” Shepard crossed her arms defensively.  
 “You made a face when you thought of being courted by Death. Maybe you were thinking being courted by someone else too? Like the LT maybe?”  
 It was with great pride that Shepard managed to keep her face straight. She didn’t think that Ashley would manage to hit the mark so soon. Although, she twitched slightly while remembering, Ashley had been there for some of Kaidan’s more awkward flirting at the beginning.  
 “He’s a Major now, probably been promoted further since the war.”  
   
 She expected a smirk from Ashley, not the blaring smile that almost set her eyes on fire.  
 “Good for him. What about you though?”  
 “I’m still stuck at Lieutenant Commander. Being on the wrong side of everyone that seemed to matter does that. We can talk about that later though, introductions first?”  
   
 Ashley smiled sheepishly and searched the crowd before catching two middle-aged men’s eyes before beckoning them over.  
 “Dad, Grandpa, this is Commander Shepard. She’s the only CO that pretty much looked at me in the face and went ‘Williams who?’”  
 Shepard stared, wondering how both the men seemed to look the same age before remembering her manners. “I… it’s a pleasure sirs.” She reached out a hand towards them.  
 “No, the pleasure is ours.” They both shook her hand and she found herself slightly tongue-tied. She had killed their daughter, their granddaughter and they were both looking at her like she was a glorious jewel that was paraded out once every ten years.  
   
 “It’s good to see that someone can see past well, the past.” Ashley’s dad smiled. “She’s talked our ears off about you, so when we heard… well we asked if we could visit and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her move so quickly before.” The two men chuckled and shared a look. Shepard smiled slightly and leaned on the wall.  
 “I’d say I’m surprised, but she talked about both of you as well.” She figured that she should share the embarrassment with everyone, and succeeded. She looked at the three of them.  
 “So, how does that transfer thing work?”  
 Ashley’s grandfather straightened and the entire room got quiet, with several faces glancing their way or waving their hands and pointing at them.  
   
 “The temporary transfers return after one sleep cycle at most, one year in Earth time.” He paced slightly, his brow furrowed in thought. “For permanent transfers, well one way is something I’ve only heard of. First is where the living arrangements change, either because they want to stay with the same people that are transferring to their home or because their own ‘home’ is changing. There are also rumours I’ve heard of another type of transfer where the ‘leader’ of a Voyage creates a list to be approved by Death. Supposedly, there are restrictions placed depending on the people but most only take one other with them. What you’re doing is… unprecedented I believe.”  
 “Death hinted there may have been one or two others before,” Shepard interrupted.  
   
 She felt the room staring at her, the question in their eyes.  
 “Death said ‘most’ and seems like the type of… entity that’s rather careful with words. I think Death tries to distract from it too with the mode of speech,” she elaborated.  
 “Not many speak of Death so easily either,” Ashley’s grandfather murmured. “Usually he only speaks when we’re… well ‘reaped’.”  
 Shepard twitched at the word ‘reap’. After over three years of chasing after Reapers there was just something in the word that made her trigger finger a little twitchy.  
 “Well sirs Williams, you have leave of the ship. If you would like… I would be honoured if you returned later to meet the full crew.” She fought down a smile. “Everyone’s family actually, before we leave on, you called it the Voyage?”  
 Ashley’s grandfather nodded, tears gathering in his eyes.  
 “I’d just like you all to meet your beloved’s second family,” she continued. “Since I’m proud to say that they’ve all been my family.”  
   
 She thought she could hear a few interested murmurs and a few muffled sobs. Her own heart tightened slightly at her admission. The Normandy was her family, her _gang_ that followed her into Hell regardless of the chances of making it back. She couldn’t ever imagine leaving them behind.  
 “It’s an honour.” The Williams men stepped to a salute before falling out to let the next family step forward for their introductions.  
   
 By the time all the introductions finished, Shepard was exhausted. Guilt ate at her for each family she met, and those whose families were absent. It reminded her far too much of how much she’d sacrificed, _who_ she had sacrificed.  
 “So, you and Alenko?” Anderson sidled up.  
 She let out a small laugh. “You heard Ashley there? Well, I suppose fraternization doesn’t matter anymore really.”  
 Anderson joined her in laughter. “Not really, but the morale of your crew does matter.”  
 Shepard tucked a hair behind her ear. It felt awkward talking about this with Anderson, someone she had endeavoured to keep this from. He remained silent, Anderson always seemed to be able to get stories from her just by waiting.  
   
 She could only put up with his patience for a minute before she sighed and slumped against the wall.  
 “Yeah, me and Alenko.”  
 “For how long?” Anderson’s voice was soft, carefully neutral.  
 Shepard flinched slightly. “Since you knocked out Udina. Well, there was some… flirting before that too. We, I—” She shut her mouth when Anderson raised a hand. She took in a deep breath to calm down slightly before continuing on. She could always trust Anderson to at least hear her out and _then_ tell her if she was being stupid with her life.  
 “It was more physical after the Normandy was locked down. Until then it was… it was like we were dancing around each other, waiting for the right time. Then… then I—”  
 “You died the first time.”  
 Shepard let out a mirthless laugh. “I died. I’m not sure if I’ll ever live that down. I… I wanted him on my team so badly, for someone I trusted when I was just dragged back into the jaws of Hell. Literally.”  
 “Cerberus, the jaws of Hell. That’s some rare imagery from you.”  
 “Just don’t tell Williams or she’ll be spouting more poetry. I had a Thomas’ poem in my head when I was dying. Rage against the dying of the light,” Shepard murmured.  
 Anderson nodded and remained silent.  
 “I don’t think I’ve hated Cerberus more since Horizon. Everything they did before that… I could almost see their reasoning. Horizon almost ripped me apart. I just… shut down for a bit. It didn’t feel like I could… well feel anything. Then it was just all of this anger. I almost enjoyed ripping things to pieces for a while, even more if it was Cerberus.” A faint smile touched her lips. She had gone to help out Jack shortly after seeing Kaidan, and was only slightly disappointed by the lack of Cerberus personnel. “I’m surprised I was able to work with that crew.”  
   
 “You did good work, Shepard. No matter what your feelings,” Anderson reassured her. “I just wish… no, if I knew that might have made things worse as well.”  
 Shepard sighed. “Yeah, I thought about telling you a few times. We moved past our issues after Mars though, he almost died there.” She chuckled. “Funny thing, dying. Seems to make you that much more aware of what you want in life.”  
   
 Anderson chuckled slightly. “That’s true enough. Now that we are dead all we can really do is wait and remember.”  
 “Hope too,” Shepard whispered. “That they won’t be here for a long while.” She swallowed against tears that threatened to pour down her face. “That… that they can be happy.” Kaidan’s last words still echoed in her mind. If he came here soon, she would make him regret it.  
 “Hey there, it’ll be fine. We have to have faith in those we left behind.” Anderson enfolded her in a hug. He hadn’t done anything like that since she enlisted. It was almost enough to have her break down.  
 “Let go, let it empty you. You’ll have to focus for the days ahead.”  
   
 Those words seemed to demolish whatever wall she had left between her emotions and her duty. She wailed, her hands clenching Anderson’s dress blues as she sobbed. She had so little, and what little she had, was always taken from her. Her parents on Earth, her friends in the Reds, her squad at Akuze were all gone. Even with Cerberus, they had tried to rip apart her friends during the war, except her teeth had grown enough that she tore them apart first. Now, she was taken from those she loved the most and they were taken from her.  
 “I didn’t want to die. I didn’t. We could have done it. It’s my fault he’s alone.” If Anderson had been alive they could have destroyed the Reapers sooner, but it was all her fault for killing him. She wasn’t strong enough.  
   
 She was never strong enough. But for her crew, for their future, she worked hard as hell to make sure that she was strong enough. She wouldn’t leave anyone behind ever again, not since watching everyone die at Akuze. She would save them all and let them remember just why they were important, and she would do it again.


	4. Doctor in the House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More is learned and a new crew member appears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays! There will be the regular January update as well, this is just my present to everyone.
> 
> There's something I keep meaning to add to these notes, but I always forget what it is... hopefully I'll remember sooner rather than later.

 Shepard took a deep breath in. She was slowly getting used to the perpetually awake state, along with all the other perks of being dead; such as not needing to eat. She had gone exploring parts of the ship, learned how to conjure dice to play with the crew and came to a realisation. Waiting sucked. She thought about going to Earth, since there was bound to be _some_ instance of Earth in this entire clusterfuck. She definitely understood why the transfers and communication were so important now that she was settling in. In fact, she would probably not be so bored out of her mind if there was actually anyone she _wanted_ to talk to that wasn’t already on the Normandy.  
   
 Shore leave existed for a reason, partially so that the crew wouldn’t rip each other’s hair out or get cabin fever. There were other things that people could do on shore leave too. Her mind drifted back to Kaidan and one of his first attempts at flirting.  
 “You’re thinking about him.” Thane’s voice broke her from the memories.  
 She nodded, placing a small smile on her face. “It’s hard not to.”  
 “Irikah told me she felt similarly.”  
   
 Shepard started. She had forgotten about Thane’s wife. “I’m sorry,” she stammered.  
 “Why? Kalahira led me back to her. We speak frequently.”  
 “Does she… I mean…” Shepard rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.  
 “No.” The gentleness in Thane’s voice suggested something more and she felt her heart drop.  
 “I will be staying with her, we wish to wait for Kolyat and then we will decide.”  
 Shepard opened her mouth and then closed it. She nodded. She hadn’t expected everyone to stay for one final mission, she knew there were those that didn’t really want to leave their families, or to be bound up in some strange mission that was high risk and high reward again.  
 “Thank you for telling me, Thane.” She managed to keep her voice even to hide her distress. Thane had been one of her rocks during the Collectors, one of the few she could bear to trust. Then, when Kaidan was injured, his offer of protection let her focus wholly on her mission.  
   
 She didn’t think that she would be leaving many of her ground team behind. She didn’t really think that any of those she trusted would be staying behind.  
 “Irikah will visit on the next day available,” Thane continued kindly. “I will try to stay here until you’re ready to depart. A… sending party if you will.”  
 “If it’s anything like the Akuze cele—” She stopped herself. She really didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to remember how weak she was, how she couldn’t save anyone. However, it did remind her of something else she had wanted to tell Thane.  
 “Thank you for the prayer. The one you asked Kolyat to give.”  
 She pointedly looked away from Thane. The memory was still a little embarrassing to her.  
 “You required it,” Thane stated. “It gave you strength.”  
 “It did.”  
   
 She clenched her hands behind her back. Sometimes she felt like she was getting a little push, a jolt of encouragement when fighting. She had waved off Ashley’s idea of there being a God, or at least the one she referred to. There was… something else to the world, even if it was just Lady Luck.  
   
 She found herself jumping out of that train of thought when the Normandy’s lights went out, her posture stiffening into battle readiness. It was only Thane’s gentle arm on her own that made her force herself to relax marginally.  
   
 “The same thing occurred when you joined us,” he explained.  
 Shepard’s eyes went wide. “Wait so then…”  
 Thane dipped his head and began to guide her slowly towards the medbay. “It would appear so. There is always a… flicker of some kind when a particular place has a new occupant.”  
 “So how do you know they’ll appear in the medbay?”  
 Thane paused for a moment to consider. Shepard took the time to glance around the rest of the crew. They seemed slightly apprehensive, but also oddly attentive. There seemed to be less of a crowd moving as well, most people seemed content to wait.  
 “I don’t. It’s where you appeared though. The majority of the prior crew stated they woke up where they died. I’m uncertain for everyone else.”  
 “Well, Ashley was with her family,” Shepard’s brows knit together while the lights flickered back on and the medbay door opened. “I’ll ask others.”  
   
 Mordin and Miranda were already in the medbay, omnitools out and ready to go. Shepard had a fleeting thought if there was something like the extranet while they were dead and how something like that might work. She glanced over to the new figure on the bed. She looked somewhat familiar but she couldn’t immediately place the face.  
 “Who?” Shepard stared at the sleeping figure. The features were familiar to her but something was off.  
 “Dr. Chakwas,” Miranda supplied. “I have a theory that everyone’s age averages out depending on when they died, and we appear to be that age. Except we can’t be older than we were when we died. It’s proved true for the crew of the Normandy and their families so far.”  
   
 Shepard looked back at Dr.Chakwas. Now that Miranda identified her, the features were easy to spot. It was probably the hair that threw her off. She had always imagined Chakwas to have brown or black hair in her youth, not a fiery red. Then again, it fit her somewhat. Shepard smiled slightly, she had been worried about there being a new addition so soon, but of everyone, Chakwas was the most understandable. Shepard sighed and leaned against one of the tables, letting her gaze fall to Mordin and Miranda.  
 “How long are people usually…?” She waved a hand at Chakwas. She didn’t know if she was passed out, stuck in some sort of limbo or her ‘self’ was getting adjusted to its new home.  
 “Not long,” Mordin offered. “Shepard unusual. Possibility that time to awaken relevant to injuries. Miranda up almost right away. Not sure if Thane ever asleep.”  
 She almost felt Thane smiling behind her. The information was helpful though, and it seemed like she would always be an exception for everything.  
   
 She rubbed the back of her neck as she realised just how true that was. Now she wanted a bottle of that Serrice Ice Brandy when Chakwas woke up. Hell she’d even share it with the crew. She slowly lowered her hand to rest at her side. If this was the original Normandy, she had to wonder if Dr. Chakwas’ old bottle of Serrice was here as well. She would have to ask when the doctor woke up. Then again, she might be too busy to have a drink with her. Death did say he’d have more answers for her and she had a new list of questions.  
  _I am content to wait until after the reunion. I will be in your quarters._ The voice was strangely familiar in her head, like it had always belonged there.  
   
 She glanced back at Thane to reassure herself that she had been the only recipient of that message. She diverted her gaze back to Chakwas, torn between waiting for the older woman to wake up and going to talk with Death to get an actual name and pronouns. Plus there were all the questions she had to ask that were now categorised. Maybe she’d ask if EDI could record their conversation and make a small codex for the crew. There were bound to be others in this limbo that would find the information interesting.  
   
 She crossed her arms and frowned. That was the issue really, she hated waiting and was stuck waiting without any answers she wanted. One of her few solaces was that if Chakwas was the only new arrival, Kaidan probably survived the war. A pang of guilt shot through her that she hadn’t brought him along for the final run, leaving his tech and biotic skills to be more useful somewhere else.  
   
 There were plenty of things she wished she could change and then maybe everything would have been different. Except, when she thought about it, she had been on borrowed time to begin with. She stared at Chakwas’ hair, wondering what would have happened to Earth and the galaxy if she had died when she was supposed to. Would everything have stayed the same? Or would the Reapers have wiped them out without even a chance to defend themselves?  
   
 Shepard closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that. The Reapers had devastated so much of the galaxy, even with her running around playing messenger, and _her_ name was the one on most people’s lips when ‘Reaper’ was mentioned. The cycle would have ended badly without her, she concluded. They may have lost too much, too quickly, or Cerberus would be running the galaxy.  
   
 Shepard shuddered. That thought definitely scared her more than the Reapers succeeding. She glanced back at Chakwas, did she imagine seeing that finger twitch? She stood up at attention while the Doctor woke up.  
 “Major Karin Chakwas.” Shepard’s voice quivered. Dr. Chakwas turned swiftly and her eyes widened when Shepard saluted.  
 “Welcome to the Normandy SR1.” A weak smile managed to make its way onto her face. “It’s good to have you here.”  
   
 “Shepard?” Chakwas moved swiftly, ignoring everyone else in the room to envelope her in a hug. She definitely hadn’t anticipated that reaction.  
 “How, did? No, they’re on the run. How are you alive?” The questions poured out Chakwas’ mouth quickly.  
 Shepard hugged her back. “I’m not, _we’re_ not.” She swallowed; she found it oddly hard to say. “It well, it turns out that there is a life after death. For now at least,” she amended.  
   
 Chakwas took a step back and took in the room. Shepard resisted the urge to fidget while the older woman took stock of her new situation.  
 “It would appear we have some catching up to do Commander,” Chakwas spoke slowly.  
 Shepard relaxed slightly. “It does appear so.” She glanced at the other three, then the door. They took the hint and left, Mordin mumbling something about human ages and different effects between individuals being fascinating.  
   
 Chakwas moved smoothly to a counter and hit a latch. Shepard held back a laugh at the drawer’s contents: a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy.  
 “Carrying right on with tradition then?” Shepard’s eyes glinted as she smiled.  
 Chakwas snorted. “What better way to catch up and reminisce? I’m certain you have more of an idea what’s going on here than I do, and I know more about what happened after…” Chakwas trailed off.  
 Shepard swallowed. “Is… is everyone okay?”  
 Chakwas rolled her eyes and poured two glasses. “You died for the second time Shepard, destroying the Reapers. No, they aren’t okay. They’re coping with work for now but when that dies down, well I just hope those antidepressants I handed out do some good.”  
 Antidepressants, Shepard took her first swallow of the brandy. That definitely didn’t sound too good.  
 “Who?”  
   
 Chakwas tutted at her. “Let me ask a question too; would you? We can both get caught up together in a way that won’t be utterly painful, or at least less painful when you have a pleasant buzz going.”  
 That made sense, except that Shepard didn’t have that much information. “Okay but my Q&A session with the resident commanding officer is after we get caught up. I’ll have more information after that.”  
 Chakwas shrugged and downed her glass. “I’ll take what I can get for now. So, why are we on the Normandy?”  
 Shepard shrugged and held out her own glass for Chakwas to refill as well. “Well EDI’s been getting comfortable in it, but I think it’s because a lot of the crew were tied to it as well. Seems we get drawn to either family or places that are important to us.”  
 Chakwas frowned slightly. “Why not the SR2 when EDI… died then? Oh, Joker’s going to be devastated that Tali’s efforts won’t amount to anything. He, Kaidan and Liara took your death the worst, so I left them some of the new experimental antidepressants for the horrible days. The rest of the crew are bad but those three…”  
   
 Shepard swallowed. Those three had been with her since the beginning, and had no one else to turn to. Tali and Garrus had found some purpose in each other, and she hoped that would help them get through it. It didn’t help that those three were the ones that she was particularly attached to, for various reasons.  
 “So, where are we going from here? If there’s a going?” Chakwas chuckled.  
 Shepard smiled slightly. “Well, for now we wait. We can go as a group to get reincarnated and keep our memories.” Her hands clenched around her glass. She didn’t want to forget all her efforts, the people she lost and the love she had gained. Chakwas gave her a sympathetic look and took her glass away.  
   
 Shepard looked up at her confused, it was going to take her forever to get used to that flaming red hair.  
 “Go get your questions. I don’t think you’ll be coherent enough after the ones you ask me are answered.”  
 Shepard swallowed. “It’s that bad?”  
 “Go. I’ll wait for you.”  
 Shepard felt a certain amount of dread when she stood. She had a fair number of questions for Death, but she dreaded the questions she had for Chakwas more now.


	5. Some Questions and Answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Shepard asks Death some questions and things get a little tense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Chapters will be posted now some time between the first and seventh of the month. At least until Resmiranda and I have a good buffer of betaed chapters for when school starts kicking our butts :)

 Shepard felt dread slowly seeping into her as she entered her room. She wasn’t sure if it was because of her brief chat with Chakwas, or her upcoming talk with Death. She tapped her omni-tool nervously. There had been more than a few questions she had rejected out of sheer irritability. Does Death like cheese? She snorted. Okay, she might ask that if she needed a mood breaker, but she hoped that was just someone having fun.  
   
 “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.” Death’s voice cut smoothly through her thoughts.  
 Shepard shrugged, hiding how much he had startled her. “Chakwas decided I should ask my questions so that she could ask more of hers.”  
 She thought she could hear a smile in Death’s voice. “She’s your rock.”  
 “Sort of, she’s one of the few…” Shepard swallowed, willing herself not to cry again. She had her rocks to hold onto in the storm, and she was happy that so many of them had weathered the storm when she slipped under.  
 Death’s head dipped. “I have thought about the question you last asked me.” She felt the presence shift around the room and absent-mindedly typed in another question to ask.  
 “There seem to be many names your comrades have for me. I believe the one that I’m most drawn to is Kalahira. Oceans and afterlife.” There was a pause before Death – no Kalahira – continued. “You may call me as such. Your languages are also strange, so I believe that ‘they’ would be most appropriate.”  
   
 Shepard nodded. Thane might be amused, she knew that his religion had been one of the more interesting things that she had learned when he was on the Normandy.  
 “There is something about the beginning of life, and the end of it,” she murmured. She straightened slightly, remembering the first question she wanted to ask.  
 “Kalahira then, would it offend you if EDI recorded our questions and answers to collate into a guide for those that pass into your care? There are many more that may have the same questions I would ask you, and this way you might only have to answer them once.”  
 “I don’t give information lightly,” Kalahira warned.  
 Shepard thought for a moment. “Then we’ll run the information by you and you can remove what isn’t necessary. I do think at least _some_ people are curious about where they’ve found themselves, and it may save you some energy later on.”  
 “I have yet to experience that,” Kalahira’s voice grew frosty.  
 “Well you said you don’t really talk to people that much; and I can tell you a lot of people in my cycle _do_ ask questions.”  
 She got the impression that Kalahira was frowning.  
 Shepard made one last push. “A lot of the information would filter down anyway, this way it’s still _correct_. You know that I’m going to tell my crew, and right now not all of them might come with me. That means it’s going to spread to some of your other areas in bits and pieces.”  
   
 Kalahira was silent, but Shepard could still feel their presence in the room.  
 “I will inform you which pieces of information I don’t want spread. EDI will cease recording and leave until she’s permitted back into the room. Is that a fair compromise?”  
 “Perfect.” Shepard nodded. She drew up her omni-tool with her colour-coded questions while EDI chirped her own confirmation. Red for she was an absolute idiot for not asking those questions, green for might get answered anyways, cyan for ‘why the fuck would I ask this’.  
 “You said that to reincarnate is a journey. What type of journey exactly?”  
 Kalahira shrugged. “I don’t know.”  
 Shepard frowned; she had expected something more than that. “In what way do you not know?”  
 Kalahira’s speech had long pauses, like every word was thought out. “There is a certain… range to my influence. Reincarnation is both escaping my influence, and finding your way back.”  
 Several things clicked in Shepard’s mind at once. “So that’s why you said that The Illusive Man would have a hard time getting out; you can affect the difficulty someone has in escaping your space. But, you can’t describe the journey either because you’re just one part of it.” It made her planning that much more difficult. The Reapers would be easy in retrospect. At least then she could find what she was facing and plan. How could you plan against the unknown? What mental and physical stressors would affect them? There were too many unknowns to prepare properly.  
 “Correct. In regards to your own travels, you’ll receive more details about exiting my sphere of influence after you make a decision.” There was a bit of a hint in there, she could feel it. She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. She felt that she should have taken more of the interrogation classes as part of her N training. Instead she had been utterly drawn by the tech and fell back to threatening idiots that put people in danger.  
   
 “Okay, I’ll take that as ask more questions later.”  
 She felt Kalahira slump in the shadows.  
 Shepard huffed. “Okay, how do you do that?”  
 “I don’t understand?”  
 “I can’t see you but I can feel an impression of your emotions!”  
 A pause and a tilt of Kalahira’s head. “But you can see me. I’m all around you.”  
 Shepard resisted the urge to pull her hair.  
 EDI decided to add in her own two cents. “I believe Shepard is wondering how she can interpret your actions and motions while not having a visual display.”  
 Kalahira straightened in understanding.  
   
 “Your senses aren’t acute enough, but can pick up some of the subtleties and come to a conclusion.”  
 Shepard scowled. “That doesn’t make sense.”  
 “Do biotics only see with their eyes? They’re only a different type of human, aren’t they?” Kalahira tilted their head. “Some other species can see it—”  
 “I detect through changes in the electrostatic fields,” EDI piped up. “The reactions are slight, but provoke particular responses in each individual.”  
 Shepard rubbed her forehead. None of these were actually questions she was _supposed_ to be asking, so she should drop the issue. It seemed like EDI understood what Kalahira was trying to explain so she would just pick her brain later.  
   
 “Sorry, that was a bit off topic,” she mumbled. She glanced down her omni-tool to the next line of red text. “How are the communications between different areas supposed to work?”  
 Kalahira smiled, seeming almost excited at being asked that. “It’s simple and complex! Although most things that appear simple are also complex aren’t they? The energy between the beings is shared between their respective places; at least when they’re remaining in their own places. With temporary transfers, I believe that’s what most residents call them, the energy travels to its new destination. It leaves an energy deficit in their previous area however, so I have to recalibrate the system if the transfer is over a significant period of time. Otherwise their energy is drawn back to its original location.” Kalahira beamed. Shepard closed her mouth, at some point her jaw had dropped. Kalahira was right, it was, in essence, simple but the amount of people and the system itself made it complex as well.  
   
 She was a little frustrated she hadn’t thought of that herself.  
 Kalahira wasn’t quite done with their explanation. “However, that is limited to my own area of influence, so communications cease after a person completes the first part of their journey.” That made complete sense, although it made her wonder about how their communications as a group would be able to continue then. Shepard nodded slightly and scrolled for her next question. Kalahira seemed almost excited to be answering some of the questions.  
   
 She paused over one of her own. She was almost certain that it would be censored, but it bothered her as well.  
 “You let Ashley watch me at the Citadel,” she said carefully. Kalahira stilled, going almost dangerously quiet. “Can we watch the living?”  
   
 “EDI, turn off recording and erase that question. I’ll return access to the room when we’re done.” Shepard felt a chill in the room as EDI confirmed the order. It felt different without her in the room, almost like she was being enveloped in something both warm and cold at the same time.  
 “That’s a dangerous question, Shepard.”  
 Shepard’s body went into a battle ready state. There was some nerve she had hit to get Kalahira on edge. Something that made them aggressive towards her.  
 “The dead can never meet the living.”  
 “That wasn’t the question!” she snarled. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end.  
 “Where would it stop?” Kalahira snapped. “The temptation is less if you don’t know, if you _never_ know.”  
 “Except we get all these _hints_ from people that know them!” She forced herself to take a step towards Kalahira’s corner.  
   
 She had no idea how it happened. All she knew was that she was blasted off her feet across the room.  
 “You are an exception I’ve made.” Kalahira’s voice was frosty and the air around Shepard grew even colder. “Ashley Williams was one exception I made. Exceptions I made for the irregularities regarding _both_ of your experiences, and how your work helped my own for the centuries to come.”  
 Shepard regained her footing and scowled at the room. “It was a _simple_ question.”  
 “It is a dangerous question!” The room flared red before turning a meek green. “The dead can only see what I see, at _great_ cost.”  
 If Shepard was thinking properly, or more diplomatically, she would have dropped the subject. But Kalahira had _thrown_ her across the room in response to one question.  
 “So just what can you see?” she snarled.  
 “The ending of everything,” Kalahira whispered. The room faded back to its normal colour. “I see the echoes of life and hold them until they can reach back to the living, and I can see when the living begin to fade.”  
 Shepard felt her heart plummet. A dangerous question was putting it lightly. She forced herself to take even breaths. The thought that the only time she might be able to watch Kaidan was when he was about to die was definitely incentive enough to _not_ want to watch it. But others, murderers, fetishists, they might take too much pleasure in such sights.  
   
 “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  
 “You understand?” Kalahira’s voice was anguished. The room regained a slight green tint.  
 Shepard nodded. “I… I wouldn’t want to watch anyone I cared about, only to know they’d be dying soon. There are too many—” she cut herself off.  
 “Your Ashley was the same,” Kalahira moved around the room. “She wanted to know from the beginning. She watched… she watched from the moment you sent your team away and couldn’t tear her eyes away.” Shepard swallowed. Ashley hadn’t said anything about Anderson or the Illusive Man. About her actions then, her own weakness and hopes shared with Anderson in his final moments.  
 “I think you can let EDI back in, Kalahira.” Shepard’s voice was thick. She swallowed a few times to try and loosen her vocal cords again.  
 “I think it would be best if you ask the next question, and if it’s appropriate I will let EDI back in and you may repeat it.” The room faded to a more neutral white, although Shepard swore she could still see tinges of green in it.  
   
 “Um.” She scanned down her list again. Kalahira had already answered where they were, sort of. “How long does our… energy, survive?”  
 “Your souls? I think that’s the human terminology.”  
 Shepard shrugged. She wasn’t sure if she really believed in souls, but at the same time; they were all here. “Sure.”  
 “One moment, I’ll let EDI back in. I do enjoy your questions.”  
 The reassurance enveloped Shepard like a balm. It was so comforting that it actually set her on edge slightly. She had only ever felt so comfortable in Kaidan’s arms, after he confirmed that he wasn’t going to try and kill her again, that the worst was behind them.  
   
 “Shepard?” EDI’s voice returned. “Your heart rate is elevated.”  
 “Kalahira tried to calm me down a bit too much,” she mumbled. She rubbed at her arm, trying to distract herself from a few – far too pleasant – memories.  
 “I didn’t intend to distress you further, Shepard.” Kalahira’s voice was concerned.  
 Shepard waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it.”  
 If the two had bodies, she would swear that they were hovering over her. It made her feel all the more irritable.  
 “Perhaps we should continue this at a later time, if your further questions are more of the inquiry sort, it shouldn’t be extremely pertinent to the information you want to give your crew.”  
 “You’d be surprised,” Shepard mumbled.  
 EDI clearly disagreed. “You haven’t rested at all, Commander. High stress levels aren’t recommended early in the death cycle. It may lead to impaired decisions.”  
   
 Shepard closed her eyes, about to tell EDI off and just ask her next question when she felt her voice stripped from her. She stared at the room, slightly terrified that it was possible.  
 “I will take my leave for now, Shepard. I cannot permit you to share some of the information, so I must limit some of your, uh, energy in that regard. I will return, possibly soon.”  
   
 If they were trying to calm her down, the two of them were going about it in exactly the wrong way. Some other friend of hers was going to die soon, especially if Kalahira could _tell_ they were going to die soon. Before she could demand anything, plead for at least a name; she was left alone in the room with EDI.


	6. Stress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chakwas is a doctor, but also a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally remembered what note I wanted to add at the start of this. I've also added it into the tags. I won't be touching on the DLC in this fic. Partially because it would make it a fair bit longer than it already is.

 It took most of the day before Chakwas realised that her age had reverted. The remainder of the day was spent finding someone to explain it. It explained some of the Commander’s timidity, that woman rarely opened up to anyone. She felt privileged to have seen even the tiniest bit once when they were with Cerberus, and again at Huerta Memorial.   
   
It did come as a surprise that Shepard didn’t return again to help her finish the bottle of Serrice. She still had to get used to how the days were on here. The Gunnery Chief had already debriefed her in regards to how time seemed to work. It did seem odd to Karin that there wouldn’t be any need to eat or sleep within this area. Which, she supposed, meant there was an area they _would_ need to eat and sleep in. Everyone had clammed up at that point and looked at each other nervously.   
   
Which led her back to standing outside the Commander’s room with the remaining brandy. If the Commander was avoiding the crew, crew she hadn’t seen for _years_ , there was some reason behind it.   
“EDI, would you please open the Commander’s door for me?” she tapped her foot impatiently.   
EDI sounded apologetic. “The Commander doesn’t want to see anyone at this time.”   
“What is she doing?” Chakwas decided to try a different tactic.   
“I believe she’s trying to sleep.”   
Chakwas frowned. She hadn’t tried forcing herself to sleep, perhaps that would do something.   
“Do you know why she’s upset?”   
There was a slight pause before EDI answered. “I never said she was upset.”   
“She’s avoiding crew she hasn’t seen for a year. I’ve answered more questions about Reapers and Collectors than I expected. The only reason she’d neglect that is because something upset her terribly.”   
Chakwas frowned, none of those reasons would get the Commander to open the door. She had to think of something else.   
“Tell her if she doesn’t let me come in I’m going to finish this brandy on my own tonight.”   
There was an expected silence as EDI relayed her message before returning. Karin never thought that she’d actually miss the blue holo-form. It helped give her some idea of the AI’s whereabouts, even if she was technically everywhere.   
“Shepard says that if you drank that much in one night you’ll die again. _If_ you could drink that much before passing out.”   
“I’m up for the challenge,” Karin smirked. “Not much else to do.”   
“I’m opening the door.” EDI’s voice had a pleasant chime to it. “The Commander is in a particularly fragile state of mind. I do believe that sharing thoughts between friends would help. I wish I could help further.”   
“You help plenty EDI, you always do.”   
“Thank you.”   
The door glowed green and Chakwas stepped across the threshold.   
   
When EDI said a fragile state of mind, Chakwas certainly wasn’t expecting this. It seemed that Shepard had overloaded a fair number of devices in her room. Her omni-tool gloves were tossed carelessly into a corner along with a lamp. Chakwas was fairly certain that if the fish tank was in the SR1, it would have been shattered along the floor.   
“I take it that the Q&A period didn’t go too well then.” Chakwas poured two glasses, adding a fair bit more to Shepard’s.   
   
Shepard’s silence worried Chakwas. She prodded Shepard’s arm with her glass. “Don’t make me drink on my own at least.”   
Shepard sat up. Chakwas stared at her. It was evident that the Commander had been crying, and that she wasn’t a subtle crier.   
“Yeah, it looks bad,” Shepard croaked and took her first swallow of the brandy. A smile drifted onto her face, it looked almost nostalgic.   
“Well, reality isn’t vids,” Chakwas shrugged. “Not everyone can look like actresses.”   
Shepard moaned. “I meant to ask if there was extranet here. At least we can stave off some of the time by watching vids then.”   
Chakwas raised an eyebrow. “The extranet?”   
“A girl has to have her priorities.”   
Chakwas smiled slightly and took her first swallow. Shepard always did enjoy tinkering a little too much. If she hadn’t been picked up by the Alliance, then it was quite likely that those skills would have taken her far. Or she would have been dead, Chakwas amended. It was too easy to forget that the first part of Shepard’s life had been on the streets of Earth. Perhaps while they were here she would ask Anderson exactly how they had managed to wrangle her away from her gang and into the arms of the Alliance.   
   
“Truer words were never spoken,” Chakwas tipped her glass to her Commander. “Although in my case, it would be fine alcohol and minor work.”   
Shepard cackled. She had hoped to get the commander to lighten up a bit, and she seemed to have succeeded.   
“Minor work!” Shepard howled. “Why did you choose to follow me again?”   
“No one else would get the lot of you taken care of properly.” Chakwas smiled. In a way, she felt like the crew were her set of misfits. They were her children, her family and she got to watch them grow in the face of danger.   
Shepard’s face fell. Chakwas hesitated before sipping at her glass again. She didn’t have to make an effort to remember to _not_ match the Commander drink for drink.   
“Mordin said that a lot. ‘Someone else may have gotten it wrong.’” Shepard bit her lip and Chakwas could see the tears beginning to well in her eyes.   
   
“Well, he’s here now at least. Singing his songs in the medbay. I forgot how much I missed your crew’s eccentricities.”   
Shepard hiccupped. “You… want to know…”   
Chakwas shook her head and refilled Shepard’s glass. “I want to drink and talk. You can talk about _whatever_ you like. Ask whatever you like.” Chakwas stared at Shepard’s face. She wasn’t sure if she _could_ talk right now. It seemed like she was the type of woman that broke into full on sobs, unable to say a word until she wrestled control back. She had met a few marines that were frustrated to be unable to voice their distress, voices locked behind their tears.   
   
She didn’t expect that Shepard would be one of them.   
“Maybe you want to hear about how the crew is?” she worded it carefully. She watched Shepard for any cues. “Garrus and Tali had a wonderful wedding just after your funeral. They wanted you to be able to watch it you know. Maybe we’ll just have them have it again up here.”   
Shepard let out a muffled sob-laugh, wiping at her tears angrily. Chakwas took a drink of brandy.   
“No? Hm, how about the crazy stunt Joker decided to pull getting you to your funeral? Liara and Tali have been trying to collate some of the other possible origins for previous Reaper cycles?” Shepard seemed interested in them all and was slowly getting her breathing back under control.   
   
Chakwas waited until Shepard took a drink of her brandy before asking the one she knew she wanted to hear.   
“Kaidan’s been doing more work for the Citadel and Alliance now.”   
“What?” Shepard’s eyes shot up.   
“He insists that Joker take him everywhere.” Chakwas felt the two were leaning on each other, preventing each other from slipping too far into grief. It was Kaidan’s apology to Joker, and Joker’s way of supporting Kaidan.   
“Kaidan said if you aren’t around to do it, someone had to step up. Not even a year after, people were already circulating conspiracy theories about the Reapers. How they were really sent by the Citadel to wipe out humanity.”   
“ _What?_ ” Shepard thundered. Chakwas caught the glass smoothly. Of course, they all had roughly the same reaction when they first heard the news.   
   
It had probably been just what they all needed to snap them out of their grief. Or at least, out of the deep sea of despair. She watched Shepard ranting at the room in general. Kaidan had sent out what feelers he could to see if Project Lazarus could be restarted. She almost wished she had been able to tell him to move on, to continue with his life because this time Shepard was irrevocably dead. There would be no more miracles, at least not until he died himself if she understood things right.   
   
She waited for a break in Shepard’s tirade, refilling the Commander’s glass at least twice when she downed the entire thing. When she finally seemed to take a breath she continued giving her update.   
“You do see why he stepped up then. It wasn’t like there was anyone else around with the quads to just rip apart the entire vid so methodically. He did seem to enjoy pointing to every time they said that you were wrong and what ended up happening as a result.” Kaidan had to suggest some outlandish things as well to get them to even _begin_ bending.   
   
“Well, that’s good for him then.” Shepard sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She took a more moderate swallow of the brandy. Chakwas forced back a smile. Looking at her now, you wouldn’t think that the Commander had been sobbing. Instead, she was a woman that looked almost happy at her lover’s accomplishments.   
“He’s also made the top five bachelors to date list for the last five years.”   
Chakwas felt a shiver down her spine at the intensity in Shepard’s eyes. She seemed to war with herself before downing the rest of her glass.   
   
They were beginning to get to the bottom of the bottle as Chakwas topped her up.   
“He gets a lot of requests to date as a result,” Chakwas continued as if she hadn’t been slightly terrified of what Shepard might do to any woman that approached Kaidan. “But the magazine has a quote of his underneath as well. He’s called the ‘Unobtainable Bachelor’, of course that just makes some try harder.”   
“What quote?” Shepard leaned forward.   
Chakwas finished her glass. She didn’t feel far tipsy enough yet to want to really talk about this.   
“There’s only been one person for me, and her name is at the top of the list of those we all lost to the Reapers.”   
   
Chakwas stared at Shepard. She really hoped that she wasn’t going to start crying again, although at least then she’d know the reason for it.   
“How do you know all this?” Shepard’s voice was thick.   
Chakwas shrugged. “Joker, I tag along so that he keeps taking his medication. Hopefully he doesn’t cut his lifespan too short without me now. Kaidan has a list of what he needs as well though so hopefully they’ll keep on top of each other.” She resisted flinching, that may have been a bad choice of words.   
   
Shepard went still. Chakwas blinked to clear her vision slightly. The Commander seemed thoughtful. Her finger was tapping on the bedspread.   
“That… would explain a lot actually.” Shepard leaned her chin on her hand. “Kalahira, Death, hinted that someone else would be joining us soon.”   
Chakwas sat a little straighter. Of their crew, she had been the eldest and the rest were all in around the same age range. None of them should be dying soon, not if they were living to the fullest lifespan.   
   
“Oh my… are, well it’s Death, or—”   
“Kalahira,” Shepard supplied. The Commander closed her eyes and just held onto her drink for a moment before continuing. “We had a chat about that and identity earlier. They were taking time to think about it. Seems that no one thought to _ask_ before.”   
Chakwas felt her eyebrows rise. “Mind if I say that must be a sack of horseshit?”   
Shepard laughed. “I’m of the same opinion. I think they must not talk to a lot of people. I keep getting reminded of how people kept telling me I was courting Death too, and now to know that there’s some entity that identifies as Death, it’s just… weird.”   
“I’m sure Kaidan would forgive you buying him a few more years,” Chakwas smiled.   
Shepard’s eyes opened and seemed infinitely sad.   
“But would he really Doctor?” she whispered.   
Chakwas wished she had an answer for that.


	7. Communication is Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard meets someone she's been curious about for a while.

 Shepard scowled down at the console. Communication day sounded a lot easier than it was, and she was fairly certain that this was at least the fifth time that Thane had repeated himself. He had enormous amounts of patience while she tried to grasp the concepts required in this dimension. It sounded simple to begin with. She closed her eyes. She only had to think of Thane, and then expand that thought to Thane and Irikah.  
   
 Although her own stubbornness was part of the problem. She refused to let Thane just bring her along, ‘align their auras’ and all. She wanted to do this, to be able to do this. There was just something in her that wanted to be able to _connect_ with another being that wasn’t on this ship.  
 “Shepard, stop trying,” Thane’s voice hummed in her ear.  
 She screwed her eyes tighter. “I can do this!”  
 Thane laughed slightly. His voice sounded slightly different now that Kepral’s syndrome wasn’t afflicting him. “I’m not telling you to _stop_. I’m telling you to stop _trying_.”  
 Shepard opened her eyes and scowled. He was amused at her attempts. Although, she expected most of the crew would be. Who knew that the almighty Shepard was horrible at something techy.  
 Thane took her hands in his. “Breathe in. Close your eyes gently. See yourself upon one of the great deserts, surrounded by sand. The bodies of your foes around you, blood surrounding you. The sun beats on your skin, warming you. Feel its caress.”  
 Shepard shuddered at the imagery, almost feeling like the warm rays were actually seeping into her skin.  
 “Open your eyes.”  
 Shepard opened her eyes and felt her jaw slacken.  
   
 She was staring at a desert world. Part of her realised that this wasn’t possible, especially since Rakhana was over populated. This place was almost… quiet, reverent. It almost felt wrong.  
 “Stay with me, Shepard,” Thane cautioned.  
 She blinked and looked at him. Right, she had to keep her energy aligned right? “You brought me here?” She was disappointed. She wanted to work the communications system herself. It wasn’t fair that people had to always come to the Normandy. Plus, she knew that without some shore leave she’d go crazy soon enough. A thousand days wasn’t a short time to wait, especially when you couldn’t really sleep.  
 “No.” Thane’s rumble was amused. “You brought us here.”  
 Shepard swivelled to look at him. She did it? How did she manage to do it without noticing though?  
 “You think too much,” Thane chuckled. “It’s written on your face ‘how did I do that?’ I had to get you to stop thinking so much. It is more trying to _feel_ a place, a person. Desire is a more potent force here.”  
 “I… didn’t realise.”  
   
 “Despite the lectures?”  
 “Okay,” Shepard conceded. “I didn’t realise the _implication_ of it. I’m a techy person Thane, not an instincts person. Not really.”  
 “From what he’s told me, that isn’t the case, Commander.”  
 Shepard wheeled around, ready to lay the person flat. At least she was, until Thane managed to twist her arm around her back.  
 “Irikah,” his tone was reproachful. “I did warn you.”  
 “Perhaps I just wanted to see how you moved again.”  
 Shepard stared at the drell in front of her. She could see why Thane had been so devastated with her loss. It wasn’t how the female looked, but she had a feeling about her. She was calm and yet Shepard could feel a fire in her. She wondered if that was how other people saw her sometimes.  
 “I see why Thane speaks of you so,” Irikah held out a hand. “I am Irikah, his—”  
 “Wife,” Shepard finished and took her hand. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, although well—”  
 Irikah laughed. “Yes! It takes some getting used to! I was so pleased and angry when Thane came here, especially when he told me what happened with Kolyat.”  
 Shepard laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of her neck. “Yes, it was… interesting. He was doing some good when we last met though.”  
 Irikah nodded and Thane moved so he could slip a familiar arm around her. Shepard felt a pang of longing and forcibly shook it off.  
   
 “You understand it as well then I take it?” Irikah tilted her head slightly.  
 Shepard felt her jaw drop again before shaking her head fervently. “No! No kids! No!”  
 Thane rumbled in laughter at her vehement reaction. “You could almost consider some of the crew your children.”  
 Shepard’s eyes went wide in horror. The very implications that had was utterly horrifying.  
 “Thane! No! I wouldn’t— I’d never!”  
 “The exception would be Kaidan Alenko I believe,” he continued on as if she hadn’t just started blathering like an idiot. “He and Liara are probably the most put together people on the ship.”  
 “Tali,” Shepard disagreed. “Tali too.”  
 Thane dipped his head. “The rest though, children.”  
 Shepard couldn’t help it at that point. She broke down laughing.  
   
 It just felt so unlike Thane to say such a thing. It was as though, as though he was saying it for her benefit. To curb the loss she felt in her own heart.  
 “It hits us all, siha,” Irikah embraced her. “Until those that we love join us, we are just as filled with despair as they are. Until we’re reunited, we share in our grief, in how we move on and try to live. You can wait for them or you move on with your own life.”  
 Shepard sniffed slightly, god she was crying again. She thought that this would have been over after she had broken down in front of Anderson and half of the crew.  
 “There is no shame in either,” Thane reassured her.  
 “What about you two? Thane you said you wouldn’t come. Are you and Irikah…?” Shepard tried to ignore the wet tracks making their way down her cheeks. Irikah didn’t seem to mind and continued to hold her.  
 “We’ll stay to see Kolyat and then decide, but whatever is done we will go our separate ways,” Irikah informed her gently. “I would not bind Thane to what he was before.”  
   
 That hadn’t even occurred to Shepard. Something that now struck her as particularly selfish. Yet, at the same time she wanted to be able to give all her crew the choice. That wasn’t such a horrible thing was it?  
 “I pray you continue to have the strength to wait, Shepard,” Irikah’s melodious voice continued. “It will get harder as the time goes on. They will not be the same as you knew them.”  
 Shepard straightened slightly and Irikah finally let her out of the embrace. “Regardless, they were a part of my crew. I know that I had a great impact on their lives, even those with longer life spans.” She raised her chin defiantly. “I’ll let them see Lieutenant Commander Shepard, the one that killed the Reapers before they move on.”  
   
 Smiles broke over Thane and Irikah’s faces. For the first time in a while, Shepard actually felt like herself. She wasn’t stuck waiting anymore, knowing that something would happen. Instead she was standing her ground, waiting for reinforcements before approaching the enemy. She could only hope that attitude would hold true for the coming days.  
   
 “Tell me about him,” Irikah interrupted her thoughts.  
 Shepard started. “What?”  
 “I told Irikah about your lover,” Thane murmured.  
 “What?” Shepard squawked.  
 Thane blinked at her. “Your concern at Huerta was almost as thick as syrup. I drew a conclusion, was it wrong?”  
 “No, but…”  
 Irikah grasped her hands lightly. “Thane is overly observant.”  
 “I’ve noticed,” Shepard snorted.  
 Irikah continued. “You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t wish, but it’s clear to see you’re hurting without him.”  
   
 Shepard clutched her hands lightly and took in a shuddering breath. “Am I that obvious?”  
 Irikah shook her head. “I only know what it looks like as I’ve seen it in myself. There are bound to be many others as well that hunt, or wait for their loved ones.”  
 “He was with me from the beginning,” Shepard breathed. Her eyes closed to remember under the hot sun. “He was just so… _awkward_ at it. We held each other apart for so long, letting the rules stop us. It was just an excuse, a reason so that neither of us would bend. Something so that we might not regret until...” She swallowed. “Until the Council screwed us over for the first time. We went rogue and it seemed like the risk was worth taking. I… died months later, the Council never even gave us shore leave before sending us out that time.” She took in a shuddering breath. She could still hear Kaidan’s hurt email in her head, his words in her heart. She wasn’t sure if they would ever truly get over Horizon. Wounds like that took more than time and love to completely heal. The memory of what they said, the looks in their eyes.  
   
 “We… hurt each other badly when Cerberus brought me back.” She swallowed hard, her grip on Irikah grew stronger. The other woman continued to look at her compassionately. “I thought it was over then. He said he loved me; _loved_ like he didn’t anymore. Then he sent a message.” Her own closure, or the opening she needed so that she could have the drive to send them all back home.  
   
 “I needed it; I might still have it, actually, if saved data makes it over when we die.” Shepard laughed, and heard it echo hollowly in her ears.  
 “If the memory of it is strong for you, it’s there,” Irikah’s voice was quiet and solemn. Shepard wanted to check badly, but her hands were still occupied, and Irikah seemed almost devoutly interested in the man that had captured her heart.  
 Shepard took in another deep breath. “I was imprisoned for a while then, at least until the Reapers came and decided to fuck over the entire galaxy, well,” she amended. “Those of us that were space worthy I suppose. He came with me; well, saved my ass more like. It was magical seeing him again, but everything was… different. We were different. We still worked together, but as lovers… we had grown apart. We still knew each other but it was…” she fumbled for words to describe the catastrophe the Mars mission had been.  
 “You were scared,” Irikah supplied. “You loved each other, but you were afraid now too. Afraid to see how you were the same, and how you were different.”  
 Shepard nodded, it seemed to describe the feeling adequately enough for now. “He… got hurt on the mission. His suit caved in and I was just so terrified until we got him to the Citadel, even then…” she pulled at her hands in the habit to rub her arms, but Irikah held fast.  
 “I… visited him in the hospital. Told him to wake up and fight for his life. That I was _ordering_ him to. I got the message from him and from Thane at the same time.”  
   
 She broke Irikah’s gaze to look into Thane’s eyes. “I’ve never felt so relieved than when you said you’d keep an eye on him. That he’d be safe while he couldn’t fight.”  
 Irikah’s grip lightened slightly and Shepard looked back to see a bright smile on her face. “Thane protected him?”  
 “Well,” Shepard felt awkward. “I don’t know if Kaidan needed much protection but knowing that someone capable was watching over him made me feel… well I felt like I could go and actually pay attention and not get killed by Reapers.” She smiled awkwardly.  
 Irikah almost beamed at her. Shepard supposed that she hadn’t heard that from Thane and wondered what his story to her had been about his death. In her eyes, he had died protecting the salarian councillor, but to his own it might have been something very different.  
 “I’m sorry, please go on,” Irikah urged. “You got a message from him?”  
 “Right, he could take visitors, and I uh, I flew straight there.” Her hands twitched in Irikah’s again. She was starting to wonder if there was a specific reason that the drell kept a hold on her hands.  
   
 “It was… nice to be able to talk to him like that again. It was still kind of… strange though. We were us but… not _us_ anymore.” She fidgeted slightly, shifting her weight from foot to foot.  
   
 “I gave him some advice about being a Spectre, we talked about his family on Earth, but well… I left and we were… not ground zero but close to it.” Shepard closed her eyes. She had seen him once more at Huerta, just before he was released. They hadn’t talked about too much then. “The next time I saw him, I thought he wanted to leave, get some space.” She swallowed. “I thought that I might have to figure out what he did, how to move on. Except, well…” Her grip tightened on Irikah. “The next time I saw him we were holding guns on each other. But he… he trusted me still. He believed me and took a leap.” She had taken the shot to kill Udina, but if she had shot Kaidan, she wasn’t sure if she would have ever forgiven herself. “He still cared, he still believed in me and he wanted to come back. I couldn’t say no.” Tears began rolling down her cheeks again. “Not when… Thane died just before that. Before that I lost Mordin. I didn’t want to lose someone else if I could help it.”  
 “It’s alright,” Irikah’s voice rumbled through her. If they could sleep, she was almost certain that she would be drifting in its general direction right now. “We’re here now.”  
   
 Shepard gave a small smile. “It was nice having him back on the ship. We started talking more, things got easier. A while later he asked for a ‘sanity check’. A chance to eat a roast beef sandwich.” She laughed at the thought. She really had thought that he only wanted the talk and a sandwich, but it had been so much more. A thrill had gone through her and a cascade of relief that they wanted the same thing. “We made up, of sorts.”  
 “Tell me about him,” Irikah prompted. “What is he to you?”  
 “He’s my rock,” Shepard answered off the top of her head. “He holds true to himself and doesn’t let me get lost in the tides. We promised to find each other after everything and meet up.” They were going to have a future together, a future that would no longer happen.  
   
 Irikah finally let go of her hands and Shepard found herself embracing the drell. She didn’t realise how much it had meant to feel, to see how much someone was willing to listen.  
 “I look forward to meeting him when he passes. Please feel free to come again, it will be easier now.”  
 Shepard tried to keep control of herself, but her voice had already begun to waver when she answered.  
 “It would be my honour.”


	8. Don't Break the Ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new arrival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is going up so much later than normal. School is a bitch, but we will be back to regularly scheduled updates! (Possibly even more regular updates now!)

 EDI was beginning to get concerned. Shepard’s mental state seemed to be slowly deteriorating as time continued. She wanted to ask, but suspected that the commander would deflect the question. When EDI thought about it more, Shepard was quite good at deflecting her questions. After Major Alenko was on board, she felt like she could understand some of the reasoning behind her avoidance, especially when EDI had asked about romantic relationships.  
   
 She had been perfectly aware of what happened on Horizon, but didn’t realise that the feeling between the two had been mutual until Shepard’s death. Major Alenko’s accident on Mars had cinched it for her, as well as the multiple trips to the Citadel during his recovery.  
   
 EDI would sigh if she could. She missed the old crew, none of the new one remembered her often enough to talk. Most of them were typically with their own families, only drawn to the Normandy when Shepard died. In that sense, she and Shepard were somewhat similar. They both had nowhere else to go, no one else to see for now. In fact, she wouldn’t be too surprised if those they really cared about were resurrected on the Normandy anyways.  
   
 She pondered if she had her old body if the crew would be talking to her more frequently. It had definitely been a normal occurrence on the SR2 after obtaining Dr. Eva’s body. That had been a marvellous accident that resulted in far more experiences than she had ever thought. Love still seemed a strange concept to her though, especially with Jeff.  
   
 A summons from Shepard’s room caught her attention and she diverted a portion of her processes to that location.  
 “How may I assist you Commander?” she asked politely. It was her code as well, but it seemed to do far more for her than Shepard’s occasional ruthlessness. She supposed that there was a reason for that and filed it to ask later, when the commander wasn’t already so volatile.  
   
 “If I were to ask,” Shepard’s voice was oddly slow. A hesitance marked her posture.  
   
 Entrance in the cargo bay – confirmed Normandy crew plus one. Watch for use of firearms.  
   
 “What is it you would ask me, Commander?” EDI prompted. Shepard’s heart rate seemed to elevate. In case further diagnostic was required, EDI began to record to her temporary memory. It was irritating trying to fit into the first Normandy. She didn’t quite realise how homey it had been, how she had been _made_ for it until now. Now, in human terms it would be easiest to say that her ‘skin didn’t fit right’.  
   
 Her external sensors were in all the wrong spots and the cameras were in strange places. Or they weren’t in places she expected and she’d have to devote more resources than normal if she wanted to know something in a particular area.  
   
 “Could you predict the next person to die?” Shepard’s heart rate was steadily climbing. EDI knew a prompt reply was best, but a reminder prompted her to remain silent for a time. She had run multiple scenarios already to estimate the time of death for their fellow crew members. With some of Dr. Chakwas’ information she had been able to further narrow the spectrum. As more of them died, she would be able to reassess her predictions.  
   
 “Projected estimates are that Jeff Moreau would be the next to join us.” Shepard’s heart rate remained steady, if still high for normal. “Given his condition, likely mental deterioration and lack of medical care personnel to ‘hound’ him, it’s likely his lifespan will be greatly shortened.” It made her happy, and it didn’t. She wished that Jeff could live a happy life, even if she knew it was unlikely.  
   
 Major Alenko’s decision to have Jeff as his personal pilot had likely increased Jeff’s lifespan greatly already. Without a secondary body, his capabilities were severely low. Especially given – Accessing memory. File obtained. Cerberus Dossier: Jeff Moreau accessed. – his extreme tendencies after Commander Shepard died the first time.  
   
 “Joker,” Shepard murmured. Her eyes closed and EDI sensed her breaths slowing. Through control – meditation, her database corrected – she brought her heart rate down.  
   
 EDI began the process of deleting the recording, if Shepard was under control now it wouldn’t be needed.  
   
 “What else? What other simulations have you run?” Shepard’s eyes remained closed. EDI felt she should answer but a part of her that wasn’t quite code suggested that she should just drop the subject.  
 “EDI, I don’t care if you think you should tell me or not. You don’t have to give details if you’re worried. I just…” Shepard sighed.  
   
 EDI wasn’t certain why Shepard was upset.  
   
 Normandy crew has exited the cargo bay, elevator to main level. Confirmed operation, running process.  
   
 “Is there a reason you ask?” EDI decided it was best to get to the point. Alternatives were dodging the question or outright answering it. The first was projected to result in Shepard getting more upset or outright ordering her to tell her. The second wouldn’t produce the answer that EDI hoped to have to correctly assess Shepard’s wellbeing.  
   
 “I—” Shepard stopped as EDI felt a familiar shudder through her systems. Her medbay sensors were taken offline. Kalahira had told her in advance that areas might be completely blacked out like such when they needed to do their job. Shepard’s heart rate rose, as did the rest of the crew’s. However, Shepard’s was oddly calmer to start with.  
   
 She set aside a portion of power to follow along that pattern while she recalibrated the lights in other sectors. It was something she hadn’t quite figured out yet, although she wasn’t sure if she truly wanted to. The power outages seemed to let the crew know that there was someone new coming aboard. They seemed far calmer than when it was Shepard herself, or Dr. Chakwas.  
   
 Shepard has left her room, travelling by CIC, likely on a path to the medbay.  
   
 She let a part of her awareness travel with Shepard. She was equally unaware who it might be until her systems were restored to her. Her general awareness was in the room, barely. It gave meaning to ‘pea soup fog’ to her. She hadn’t understood how human visual acuity could be so impaired until that point. Chakwas was in the room, talking to someone. Shepard was asking about something, calming someone down. Her voice inflections suggested it was a close friend, so it was unlikely it was one of the other members of the Normandy, but quite likely it was…  
   
 She let the thought die and refocused elsewhere. It did her no good trying to make sense of nothing. Her systems would be able to recover the audio and visual information in the room in time. She would simply wait to hear from another area of the ship.  
 “WHAT THE FUCK!”  
   
 Her careful calibrations went slightly askew. She was a little ashamed of it, but fixed each one carefully before turning her attention back to the microphone. That voice had been too familiar, too dear to her to ever forget. Nevermind his almost-shriek. It amused her that she was able to hear it, even from rooms across the Normandy.  
   
 Then again, he was facing a dead woman once more.  
   
 Shepard knew someone would die. The process she started returned. She contemplated it for a moment. There was no certain way to tell someone was going to die, Kalahira was the only one…  
   
 Begin review of recording re: Shepard and Kalahira part 1. Filter for Kalahira voice signature.  
   
 Shepard’s stress took on a new meaning for EDI now. She almost wished she had put it together, realised what it meant. Shepard was the only other person right now that had no one else to see. She had no family or friends in other areas. It made EDI feel a little more welcome. She shook a few unnecessary processes from her mind and redirected her attention to the medbay.  
   
 How should she greet Jeff? Should she emulate delight, desire, anger, hope? She was tempted to let a random processor decide for her. Perhaps she should go for a simple approach and see how Jeff responded. It was easier for her than to try and guess how she should approach a situation. She had little data in the area, most of it was medically related for helping soldiers deal with posttraumatic stress.  
 “Hello Jeff.” Her voice came across more tentative than she had hoped.  
   
 “I… EDI is it really?” Jeff’s voice cracked, or it could have been her muffled microphones. EDI noted Kalahira’s presence shift away and her senses for the room grew sharper. She knew that she would have to record Shepard’s meeting with them again soon, but for now she wanted to focus on Jeff.  
   
 To her delight, Shepard seemed content to keep Kalahira waiting, so that she wouldn’t have to choose to prioritise functions.  
 “Yes Jeff. I was quite delighted to be able to see people again, although there are far fewer familiar faces.”  
 He snorted, rubbing at his arm. Dr. Chakwas was scanning him, checking for particular markers and stresses she knew.  
 “I imagine they had a huge shock at that.”  
 Shepard had an odd smile on her face. “Yeah, I’m surprised Ashley hasn’t given me a what-for yet.”  
 “Wait, Williams is _here?_ ”  
 “Most of the Normandy crew is here Jeff.”  
   
 She went through the list of names. “Current exceptions are Silas Crosby, Amina Waaberi and Hector Emerson. They’ll return on the next contact day. There are no current permanent transfers away from the Normandy.”  
 “Thane said he’ll only be here until our last reunion though.” Shepard’s smile dropped.  
 Jeff didn’t seem to have quite the same outlook as her though. “Wait, reunion? Who else is here EDI? Like, people I actually like.”  
 It felt like it had been too long since she had dusted off her humour banks. Even so, the reply came to her quickly.  
 “There isn’t anyone you like, Jeff.”  
 He snorted. “I like _you_ , EDI. Where is your body anyways?”  
 “It’s on my list of questions,” Shepard replied dryly. “After we get you situated at least. I want to make sure you’re not going to go around breaking anything.”  
 “What am I going to break? The ship? I’m dead!” Jeff snorted.  
 “It’s possible that your condition is still attached to you, Jeff,” EDI pointed out. She had logged several cases with the crew where symptoms had carried over. Although, Thane’s Kepral Syndrome was no longer in existence so there was some evidence for both scenarios.  
 “Fine, fine. Let me know so I get out of here already.” A familiar impatience coloured his voice. It felt good to have him back. She wasn’t certain if she was imagining a certain warmth to the commander now as well.  
 “It seems that you’re clear for now, Flight Lieutenant,” Chakwas declared. Jeff cawed with victory and jumped off the table.  
   
 EDI felt certain processes running automatically as if he had certainly broken something. For once though, he stood straight and proud. She was uncertain how to describe her feeling. She set aside a separate routine to puzzle it out before refocusing once more.  
 “That’s two,” Shepard murmured.  
 “Two what?” Chakwas turned to look at her.  
 “There are two known cases where dying has cured a condition,” EDI informed her. “Thane is now without his Kepral Syndrome, and Jeff is now without Vrolik syndrome.”  
 “I hope it doesn’t change anything, does it EDI?” Concern laced his voice and EDI sensed his heart rate slowly rising. He was anxious.  
 “Many things have changed, Jeff. I can’t determine what you’re referring to.” Her entire body had changed, her being had changed. She wasn’t _portable_ anymore. She couldn’t look him in the eyes.  
   
 “Hey, who knows maybe we’ll get a body back for you!” Jeff tried to reassure her.  
   
 A pulse from the commander’s room caught her attention. It seemed that Kalahira was becoming impatient, but not enough to approach Shepard directly.  
 “It appears Kalahira is waiting for us in your chambers, Commander Shepard,” she informed. Shepard sighed, she could relate. She wanted to spend some more time talking to Jeff. Although, she was better off than Shepard since she could talk to Jeff while also helping Shepard record her encounter. The commander made her apologies, and left at a brisk pace. EDI let the primary part of her stay to talk to Jeff. Mere recording and turning on and off of her systems wouldn’t need her full attention.  
   
 The routine finally returned a conclusion. She was elated.


	9. Kalahira Give Me Guidance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some questions are answered, and more remain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely Remembrance123 betaed this chapter.

 Shepard was a little irritable that Kalahira was impatient _this_ time. Last time they had been all too willing to wait until she had finished talking to Chakwas, but this time they were in a hurry? She shook her head, if it wasn’t for reuniting EDI and Joker she wasn’t sure if she would care so much.  
   
 As it was, all she could try to do was avoid the more sensitive questions so that EDI’s processing power wasn’t required. She rubbed the back of her neck while waiting for her door to open. It felt like it used to be a lot easier to just point at things and shoot them. Instead she was armed with a list of questions and having to dust off old training she hadn’t used in a long while.  
   
 “I apologise for the hurry,” Kalahira reassured her. “I’m afraid that my attention will be elsewhere sooner than I’d like. I thought you might get the harder questions done first and then the basic questions would require less attention.”  
 Shepard raised an eyebrow. She was a little curious about that, and was halfway to asking until she realised that she really didn’t want to know.  
 “It’s good that you learn.”  
 Shepard felt a smile from Kalahira, that feeling still creeped her out slightly.  
 “I believe the last question you asked was how long a soul could survive in this… limbo I suppose.”  
 Shepard nodded and raised a hand.  
 “EDI?” She just wanted to make sure that they were being recorded. The codex collation could come later, but it was important to keep the data.  
 “I’m recording Commander,” EDI’s voice assured her. “Feel free to continue.”  
 “Souls last for varying times. It depends on how connected they are to themselves.”  
 “Connected?” Shepard’s brows knit together.  
 Kalahira took time to think of an alternate way to word it. “Your energy connects to others, and returns so long as you keep a sense of self. Once it’s lost that self-awareness, a soul… dissipates into the space.”  
 “So… you’re like a communal mind then?”  
 “Not really, but if you want to think of it that way,” Kalahira shrugged.  
   
 Shepard pulled up her omni-tool. If she could recall, there was another question that ran along similar lines.  
 “You’re a type of death; is it all death such as places, things, plants?”  
 She could feel Kalahira’s delight. She would have to commend her crew for their questions at the end.  
 “If an object carries energy, it can pass through. However my expertise is required for the more… sentient forms of life. The ones that echo through the space and can return. The ones that can help me keep things balanced.”  
 “Help you keep things balanced?”  
 Kalahira paced the room. “Are you aware that there’s a finite amount of energy?”  
 Shepard nodded, they taught it in grade school.  
 “Well, what travels accomplish through my task is take the energy that clings to them, and return it to life. When there’s enough of it…”  
   
 Shepard felt the energy in the room concentrate in the centre, reforming itself into a familiar model ship.  
 “So, all of this.” Shepard waved her arm around the room. “We’re doing this?”  
 “With help.” Kalahira grinned. “The details are mostly my work and I prevent it from all crumbling to pieces when communications happen.”  
 Shepard rubbed the back of her head. She wasn’t sure she wanted to touch the topic of communications again. Although it made some sort of sense that if someone kept melding their energy to something else that they might start to lose themselves. It just gave her the beginnings of a headache to think about for too long.  
 “That’s a little freaky,” she muttered.  
 Kalahira shrugged. “I think it might make things more interesting.”  
 “Foreseeing people trying to play around with that now too, huh?”  
 Kalahira laughed; that was as much of an answer to that question as she needed.  
   
 Shepard stared at one of her newer questions on the omni-tool. It was the last one that was probably difficult to answer, the rest were on a more personal side. Although, given that Kalahira needed time to think about the more personal questions perhaps she was thinking about that backwards.  
 “Do we remember this space if we finish the journey?” Her voice was quiet. Part of her dreaded the answer, another hoped that it might mean that things would be fine.  
 Kalahira’s energy darkened slightly, but she didn’t feel as threatened as the last time. She was about to open her mouth to tell EDI to make like a circuit board, until Kalahira answered.  
 “I don’t know. I suspect not but I couldn’t tell you for certain.”  
 Shepard bit her lip, she thought it might be the answer, but she also thought that there had been a few instances of other people that had been reborn, so surely _someone_ knew.  
 “Okay. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily good either.” She tried to shrug off the answer. “The rest of my questions should be fairly basic if you…”  
   
 Kalahira dipped their head. “I will divert attention as required.”  
 “How long have you been around? Always or did you just come into existence some day?” Shepard had to admit she was a little curious to that question as well.  
 Kalahira snorted. “I don’t know. Are you really aware when you’re first made? When you’re born? If I wasn’t always around, I don’t know if there was a time there was. I have no history to read as your kind does.”  
   
 That made a surprising amount of sense. Shepard tapped her finger, twitching slightly upon realising that she was tapping just hard enough that her omni-tool was typing random letters.  
 “I don’t suppose you know if there are any other… gods or such around would you?”  
 “Only if they die,” Kalahira snorted. “That was a—”  
 “Joke,” Shepard finished with a smile. She expected so since there were plenty of dead civilizations, and their gods were likely dead with them. If gods could die. What if there were gods and they just kept giving them different names but they were the same. She was going to have to ask Chakwas for some painkillers after this.  
   
 “You have a sense of humour and I noticed you can get angry; are there other human emotions you can feel? Relate to?”  
 Kalahira tilted their head slightly. “Is that what they’re called? Emotions? The fluctuation of the mental state?”  
 “More-or-less.” Shepard nodded.  
 Kalahira stared at her for a long time. It was a little disconcerting feeling like she was being stared at by an empty room.  
 “That would require more attention than I currently have.”  
 Shepard nodded and scrolled down the list. In a sense they answered the question already. It was merely seeing if there was further breadth to the emotions that Kalahira could feel.  
   
 “What do you think of different civilizations?”  
 “Are you referring to your own or encompassing the universe?”  
 Shepard choked a little on that thought. She thought that Kalahira might be just one part of a universal system, not the entire system itself. Perhaps she would ask her first question about attention at a different time then.  
 “The universe.” Her voice was trembling slightly.  
 Kalahira took it in stride, talking once again in their excited voice. “There’s so much diversity in so many places! They’re all so different and their resonances change too! They way each society arranges its energy is so different and it changes as time goes on too!”  
 “Do you have a favourite?” Shepard cringed as the words fell from her mouth, but Kalahira seemed to contemplate the question seriously.  
 “The Daryns have a system that works quite similarly to my own. It helps ease the attention I need to give them. It’s difficult for their souls to dissipate as well, which I find quite fascinating. The Surakas seem most capable of finding unique ways of manipulating the energy. I believe your human biotics are the closest similarity, but a weak image of them.”  
   
 Shepard felt her jaw slowly dropping. Both of those societies sounded like they were much more advanced than theirs ever was. Was that what could have happened in their galaxy if the Reapers never happened? At the same time, she could understand the reasoning behind the Reapers, as much as she hated them. Yet, they were unable to adapt, to change if the society they were attacking changed. She hoped that Kaidan was successful in continuing her work. If they succeeded perhaps that was something they could look forward to in their new lives. Over a thousand years in the future, assuming that Liara lived her life to the fullest of course. Although being the Shadow Broker might slim that down as well. It was odd how she seemed to have forgotten that.  
   
 “What do you do for fun?” Shepard asked, eager to get her mind off of dying friends once again. It seemed like her default thought now besides making sure she stayed in shape.  
 “Fun?” Kalahira echoed.  
 “Yeah, you know things you do in your time off.”  
 “I… don’t have time off.” Kalahira’s puzzlement was understandable. Shepard groped for another way to word it.  
 “What do you do when you don’t need to use as much of your attention?”  
 “Oh,” Kalahira rocked back, amusement rolling off them. “I talk to people like you.”  
 Shepard stared, people like her? She wasn’t sure if that meant humans, except that she got the idea from the crew that Kalahira didn’t really talk to them much.  
 “People with great accomplishments, saving the galaxy and such,” Kalahira clarified.  
 “You have a few of those lying around do you?” Shepard couldn’t help the sarcasm.  
 “One or two at a time,” Kalahira shrugged. “The universe continues to grow.”  
 “That it does,” Shepard murmured. She wondered if she could think of a way to visit some of those other civilizations, but visiting Irikah had been difficult enough already.  
   
 “Doesn’t that get tiring for you? People are always dying so you never get a break.”  
 “Not really, it always changes. It’s a reflection of life. An echo back and forth.” Kalahira let out a pleased sigh. “I get to see what happens in many places at different times, to watch people grow and fade. Seeing souls and how they change in their environments.”  
   
 A terrible thought occurred to Shepard. It was unlikely he knew the answer, but she had to ask it.  
 “For reincarnation… where…?”  
 “Anywhere,” Kalahira let out a dreamy sigh. They started up as Shepard felt the pit of her stomach fill with dread.  
 “Oh, but for group journeys, the energy is tightly knit. It would splinter eventually into your individual energies but you should be in rough travelling distance.”  
   
 That didn’t really reassure her. ‘Rough travelling distance’ varied depending on a species’ particular technology. In the case of mass relays, they could be worlds apart when they were reborn. Shepard closed her eyes.  
 “I’m sorry I can’t offer more.” There was a gentleness to Kalahira’s voice. She knew that they couldn’t provide the information, because who could see the other side of the curtain?  
 “It’s okay. I didn’t think you would have an answer.” Shepard forced the words out. She glanced down at her omni-tool to find her final question. Maybe she would take a page out of EDI’s book and start collating the information herself.  
 “What do you think about?”  
 The room quivered slightly, making Shepard just a little queasy.  
 “I suppose there are a few things, but some of them are the questions that you don’t have answers to.”  
 Shepard felt the drumming of fingers through the room, it was a little disquieting.  
 “We always wonder what we won’t know as well. I learn more and take comfort in that with each person that passes through. Is there anything more?”  
   
 Shepard shook her head. “EDI, we’re done. Save and have fun. I’ll look through the data for now.”  
 “As you wish, Commander.”  
 Silence filled the room and Shepard set herself down to slowly peruse what they had learned. EDI could fix up the basics later, but for now it was her excuse for silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any further questions for Kalahira? 8D Please do pass them on!!


	10. A Pilot's Best Friend or Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joker and Shepard have a little chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely Remmy betaed this chapter and poked me with a hot iron to start posting more frequently. So posting for a while will either be biweekly or weekly, depending on either how much I get poked or when I start making more progress on the remaining chapters.

 A sudden bang on her desk snapped Shepard from her reverie.  
 “What’s up Commander?” Joker greeted. Shepard let out an angry huff.  
 “What? Like you were doing anything just staring into space?”  
 “It’s the closest I get to sleep here. It just feels strange being awake for so long.” Shepard rolled her shoulders back. Had she really just been staring blankly into space?  
 “Yeah I heard about that. Seems like the type of thing that gets weirder the longer you stay.”  
 Shepard stared at him. “Joker if you’re fishing, just ask. In case you hadn’t noticed, there isn’t exactly anyone to write us up here.”  
 “I still think that it’s best to try to keep to regs for now though Shepard.” He shrugged. “Some order in the chaos and all. I think we’re all still willing to jump into fires for you too.”  
 Shepard couldn’t help her crooked smile. “Just like old times?”  
 “Hell yeah! So how about you catch me up and I’ll see if I can magic up some vids of Alenko for you or something?”  
   
 “Don’t,” Shepard rasped. She clutched the table hard, her eyes screwed shut. It was too late though, the joke had hope blooming in her chest, the fact that she could even ask Joker how Kaidan was doing hurt.  
 “Hey, Commander sorry. I let my mouth get away with me.”  
 “Time is slower here Joker, it…” She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “It hasn’t been as long for me.”  
 “Shit, just like last time then? Well fuck that’s going to suck. Although it makes waiting easier too I imagine.”  
 “Yeah, we won’t have to wait for Liara’s ass to show up for nine hundred years. Instead we wait for three.”  
 “Well I hope there’s a pack of cards or _something_.”  
 “Not unless you have them on you or you’re _very_ good at energy manipulation.” Shepard smiled at Joker’s look of despair. She hated to pop his bubble, but at the same time she was fairly certain he was purposefully being dramatic for her sake.  
   
 “Seriously though, Commander.”  
 “Yes Flight Lieutenant?” She arched a brow and turned to fully face him.  
 “What’s up with everything? I mean EDI and I were just kinda catching up on how things sucked without each other but I don’t really know anything else.”  
 “Are you actually asking for a debriefing Joker?” Shepard couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice.  
 “Yeah, yeah the world will burn. I need the down low though before I start trying to run laps around the cargo bay.”  
 “I’d get Ashley to drag you to her parents.” Shepard kept a straight face. “You can race through colonies then instead.”  
 Joker frowned, trying to tell if she was joking or not.  
   
 Shepard let her face break into slight amusement. “Where do you want me to start Joker?”  
 “Uh, what the fuck we’re doing here? I mean I vaguely remember something asking about whether I like to flare out like a giant star or something. It confused the fuck out of me and I said so and then I woke up here.”  
 Shepard stared at him for a moment before laughing. “You’re kidding! That’s one way to make sure the crew all comes here first. I should try to give Kalahira a hug or something next time.” Shepard wiped away tears from her eyes. Joker was looking at her like she was a charging krogan and he was calculating if he could dodge in time.  
 “We’re in limbo essentially,” Shepard started. “Our energy comes here until we decide if we want to reincarnate, or dissipate into pure energy.”  
 “So basically live again or die for good,” Joker leaned back, interlacing his hands behind his head. “Not really an easy choice.”  
 “Well,” Shepard tapped her fingers on the desk. “There’s some journey involved to reincarnate. I’m told it isn’t easy and it gets harder with each additional person.” She held up a hand to stall Joker’s question. “However, if a group passes through the journey together they keep their memories of each other.”  
   
 She felt a grin cross her face as Joker’s eyes went wide. It reminded her why she wanted to do this, why she was willing to wait.  
 “Holy shi–Holy fuck! Really? Are you serious?” He stood up and Shepard took some delight in watching him walk around normally, throwing his hands up in the air. There was still caution in his movements, but she estimated that they would pass in time.  
 “It’s what I’ve been told and supposedly my universal chips are good. Saving the galaxy seems to rank pretty high.”  
 “Hell yeah! I mean it’s about _time_ someone started throwing you and Alenko—” he trailed off and dropped his hands. “Forget I said anything okay?”  
 “Sure.” Shepard shrugged.  
 “Seriously? Just a sure? You’re not curious about him?” Joker frowned and sat back across from her. She met his gaze evenly.  
 “Chakwas gave me her projections for you two. I’m pretty sure that EDI’s working out estimated times of deaths for everyone else. Anything… more personal I think I should wait to hear from him.”  
   
 Joker held her eyes for a while. “Okay. If you say so.”  
 Shepard closed her eyes. “It’s… better I don’t know really Joker.” She swallowed. “I know this has to be harder for him, but he has some distractions as well. I find myself both hoping and cursing. You might find yourself doing the same eventually.”  
 Joker stared at her; he was doing an awful lot of that, even for him. She felt like she was under a microscope.  
 “You know, I only half came up here for a debrief?”  
 That only half surprised her. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “What do you want?”  
 “I want to know that you’re alright.”  
   
 It felt like her body grew heavier with the statement. She lowered her head back so she was level with Joker.  
 “Don’t lie to me either Commander.”  
 She swallowed. Dr. Chakwas was probably the one to put him up to this. There weren’t many of the crew right now that she was extremely close with, and they all had their own families as well. Joker was the most like her, isolated.  
 “Who asked you?” Her throat felt dry.  
 “EDI and Chakwas. I still can’t believe her hair is red! How even—? No tell me later. Answer the first one please.”  
 “EDI?” Shepard repeated. She was bad enough that _EDI_ was worried?  
 “Something about hormone levels being irregular or something? I wasn’t really paying attention. I stopped paying attention once she said ‘worried about Shepard’.”  
   
 It was a question she wasn’t sure she was ready to answer.  
 “Joker, I—”  
 “Just remember that EDI can probably tell if you lie, right?”  
 “That’s correct,” EDI chimed.  
 “Traitors,” Shepard mumbled. She sighed and resettled herself. “I told him I’d be coming back.” She glanced at Joker, but it seemed like he was waiting for her to say her piece.  
 “I told him we would be back and he… he said he didn’t know if he could get through losing me again.” She closed her eyes. “After Chakwas… it got easier, he’s coping. But he was coping with you and her to help him. Each time the lights go off I wonder and worry. It’s selfish of me. I don’t want my crew to die, yet I sit here just _waiting_ for them and realise that it isn’t _fair_ for me to want them around me. They deserve to be happy with their time! That’s _why_ I did it!”  
 “You did die twice, Commander,” Joker pointed out.  
 “Yeah and it hurt like a fucking bitch when I did die. I don’t recommend it at all.”  
 “Huh?”  
 “The Commander was passed out from pain for the first day she arrived,” EDI offered. “Kalahira had to reassure most of the crew at the time.”  
 “Wait, how long was _I_ out for?” Joker looked up at the ceiling.  
 “Less than a minute probably,” Shepard smiled slightly.  
   
 “Wait, then why—?”  
 “I died twice in the time you died once.” Shepard rolled one of her shoulders. “It carried over so it felt like I was dying twice at the same time. Pretty much got the same choice but I couldn’t think enough through the pain so I just got shunted through before getting the full explanation from Kalahira.”  
 “Okay, so who is this Kalahira person?”  
 EDI piped up. “Kalahira is what the entity known as Death has chosen for a name for at least this particular crew. Shepard has been collecting information about our situation for a time from them.”  
 “ _Right_ , because why not talk to the creepy thing that holds everything together.”  
 Shepard ducked her head to hide a smile.  
   
 “Actually Jeff,” EDI corrected. “The latest information suggests that we’re the ones that hold our particular space together and Kalahira prevents it from falling apart.”  
 Joker grimaced. “Still creepy though.”  
 “In that, we are in agreement. I try to ignore the fact with how helpful Kalahira has promised to be.” Shepard could swear that EDI was shrugging.  
 “Yeah right, like what?”  
 “Getting her a body,” Shepard offered.  
 “I wasn’t going to tell him that yet,” EDI admonished.  
   
 Shepard grinned. “You wanted to miss the look on his face?”  
 Joker was slackjawed, his eyes almost bulging out at the thought.  
 “I concede your point,” EDI agreed.  
 It was the first time that Shepard had seen Joker so lost for words. She took the chance to snap a picture with her omni-tool.  
 “Aw, hey Commander!” It seemed to throw him out of whatever thought process he had. “If you show anyone that I’ll be forced to not tell you Alenko’s habits regarding you thus far!”  
 “You say that like I want to know.” Shepard raised an eyebrow.  
 Joker snorted. “It’s almost a morning ritual. I dunno it helped both of us a lot. Made it seem like you were kinda still there you know?”  
   
 Shepard fiddled with her omni-tool gloves. It was a little intriguing that they shared the same ritual, something to get them through the day she supposed. It wasn’t really information on Kaidan that Joker was offering, but information about them both. It was information she wasn’t sure she could deal with just yet. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to hear about it.  
 “Did Garrus and Tali ever get married?” she asked instead, despite knowing the answer.  
 Joker laughed. “They eloped. Almost right before the huge Citadel ceremony thing too. Medals on everyone, statues of honour yadda yadda.”  
 Shepard made a face. “Please tell me it’s the Normandy that’s a statue and not one of me there.”  
 “Actually, it’s one of those time capsule things Liara made. They were pushing for a statue of you until she showed it to them. It had that little holo of you as well so we all felt you’d feel better about that if you knew.”  
 “God yes.” Shepard closed her eyes. The statues in the Presidium gave her chills ever since she realised that one was actually a working Mass Relay. She still didn’t know how she felt about an image of her being glorified in the Citadel though.  
   
 “How was that ceremony, Joker?”  
 “Seriously? You’re actually asking—wow. I didn’t think you’d actually care for the pomp and wordiness.”  
 Shepard shrugged. “I’m curious how badly they mangled everything. It’s a game I have, made the sacrifices seem more worthwhile then.” She hated sitting through the ceremony for Akuze.  
 Joker rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I kinda slept through most of it to be honest. I think most of us glazed through it. Things still kinda… hurt then. It felt like getting bled dry.”  
 “I know what you mean.” Shepard offered a consoling smile. “I had to sit through one of those too you know. It always feels like they belittle the actual sacrifice.”  
 “Yeah. Yeah… honestly I think I was there just for the food after. Chakwas had to drag me and Alenko there, force us through the steps for the first few years. Hell of a woman.”  
 “We’re lucky to have her.” Shepard dipped her head.  
 “Just… don’t tell her those words ever came out of my mouth.”  
 “I make no promises unless you tell me what you _can_ remember.”  
 “Fine, fine… EDI has to record it though because I am _not_ telling the story twice!”  
 “No, I’ll just ask the rest of the crew when they get here.” Shepard grinned.  
 Joker groaned. “Ouch, hit it where it hurts. Okay, Commander. What do you want to know?”  
 Shepard thought for a few moments. “Tell me what your first mission back was like, how Earth is now.” She felt comfortable for once since she died as she listened to Joker. She felt at home.


	11. A Bar in Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another member joins the crew.

 There was a certain anxiety in the crew since Joker’s arrival. Shepard felt heaviness through the ship, probably the thought that now that Joker had died, any one of the crew could be next. When she thought about the crew of the SR2, she admitted she felt her own heart grow heavy. Each day was beginning to feel like a chore, although that chore seemed much lighter on much of the crew since Joker’s arrival resulted in an increase of pranks and jokes.  
   
 She also had to admit that Joker had also added a great levity to her own mood. From this point on however, none of the crew had outstanding health issues that might result in their early demise. Either they would all come at once from a mission gone wrong, like the SR1 or there would be a slow trickle of people over time. The outstanding worry seemed to be if there would be another large mission failure. The worst part was that they all hoped, and didn’t hope. Or at least that was the case for some of her crew. It seemed that there were less of the SR1 crew trickling back after Joker’s appearance and dramatics of what happened to the Reapers.  
   
 A few had already approached her asking for permission to start their own journeys, which she granted with some puzzlement. She wasn’t confused that they wanted to start their own journey; they had been here much longer than her already. It confused her that they thought they needed her _permission_. She had chatted with Chakwas about it and they both believed it was so that the crew would know who had left. At Shepard’s suggestion they worked on a board. It took her a week to get the energy manipulation quite right, but they now had a running list of who had moved on and who remained either on transfer or on deck.  
   
 She had finally reached the point she felt that she should talk to Ashley. It was a talk more than overdue regarding the geth. Joker hadn’t skimmed over their involvement and aid offered during the war. It might have had something to do with Ashley’s more cautious acceptance of Legion.  
   
 She ran into the Chief in the mess, right after deciding to confront her about Legion.  
 “Williams,” she greeted with a small smile.  
 “Ma’am, is there anything I can do?”  
 Shepard resisted the urge to fidget, this was just like the old times where she was getting a read on the crew, she had to remind herself of that.  
 “You can take a seat Williams, I just wanted to talk to you.”  
 Darkness flitted over Ashley’s face for a moment before she sat down, Shepard sitting across from her.  
 “Is this about the geth?”  
 “Yes,” Shepard admitted. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to talk to you about it sooner.”  
 Ashley gave a small shrug. “When I came here and it _said your name_ , I figured there was some story to it.”  
 Shepard snorted. “Not much of one really, the main odd story comes later.”  
 “Then you’d best tell it ma’am. The LT was right in that you make strange allies out of enemies though. If you bring in a Reaper I may take the shot.”  
 “I hope you would, Chief. At that point I would suspect I’d be heavily indoctrinated.” Shepard tapped her fingers on the table, wondering where to start.  
   
 “Joker gave a good summary of the Collector mission. What he didn’t really know was that we saw a geth inside, and it probably saved our lives at least once.”  
 Ashley leaned on the table, her eyes bright at the story.  
 “It was unusual, especially given that in the same shots it could have killed us instead. So I decided to wake it up rather than give it to Cerberus.” Shepard made a face. “Honestly, I’d have given Legion to Tali before giving it to Cerberus.”  
 “Glad to hear it ma’am. I’m sorry to hear some of your trust was misplaced though.”  
 Shepard waved at her. “Letting them keep the base was a hope that a common enemy would unite everyone. Took a shitton more than that though.” Shepard sighed and tilted her head back to look at the ceiling for a moment. She had to wonder sometimes what would have happened if she had survived. Would she have been heralded or torn down? Actually, she probably would have had to make a speech, perhaps it was best she died instead.  
   
 “It talked, and everything it was so _strange_. The geth we fought were pro-Reapers and Legion was anti-Reaper.” Shepard massaged her temples. “I was desperate for anyone really and I knew Tali would keep a close eye on it.”  
 “Sounds tough,” Ashley’s voice was guarded, hiding something for now.  
 “Legion led us to a geth base that was pro-Reaper, heretics to them. The geth in Legion were torn between destroying them, or rewriting them. Brainwashing them. It reminded me too much of indoctrination and it accepted my choice.”  
 Ashley’s silence was starting to unnerve Shepard.  
 “I lost Legion at the Collector base. He had to open a door and took a shot when we tried to close it again. Then the Reapers were corrupting _more_ geth when they came.”  
 Shepard closed her eyes. She had failed Tali and she had failed the geth. Somehow though, it had made her decision easier. If she had been killing a few thousand geth as well she wasn’t certain if she could go through with it.  
 “I had to pick between the quarians or the geth. Neither of them would stand down and the one trying was a VI mimicking Legion.”  
   
 “You have a lot of blood on your hands, Skipper,” Ashley’s voice was quiet.  
 “Yeah. I wish it was less, that I could have done more.”  
 “Well, it is what it is.”  
 Shepard flinched. She didn’t think that Ashley would echo Kaidan’s words to her. They felt strange to her, oddly unused.  
 “Skipper are you—” Ashley stopped as the lights flickered.  
 “EDI?” Shepard called.  
 “There is a new occupant in the cargo bay,” EDI’s voice filtered through. “I’m unable to tell who at this time.”  
 Shepard glanced down to Ashley. “Want to go for a ride?”  
 “Hell yes. As long as you don’t have anymore freaky surprise Cerberus or geth coming around without telling me.”  
 Shepard thought for a little while. “Doesn’t Joker count in there somewhere?”  
 Ashley laughed and the two took a brisk walk towards the elevator.  
 “EDI is the elevator operational?” Shepard called.  
 There was a few second delay until the lights came back on and EDI replied. “All systems are fully operational. Garrus is below.”  
 “Well shit,” Shepard grumbled. “I owe the bastard a drink and I don’t know how to create those.”  
 “Maybe we should see if Dr. Chakwas can think up another bottle of Serrice,” Ashley suggested.  
 Shepard shot her a look while punching the elevator button. “How do you know about that?”  
 Ashley shrugged. “I have my ways Commander.”  
   
 Shepard scowled at her for the short ride down. The cargo bay was oddly empty of crew, except for the familiar turian inspecting the mako.  
 “Don’t tell me you miss that thing, Garrus,” she called. “I hated driving it!”  
 Garrus turned to face her, his mandibles flaring for a few moments while they closed the distance.  
 “We hated you driving it too, Commander,” Ashley said.  
 Shepard snorted and took in Garrus. He still had his clan markings, and the scar on his face. It seemed that some damage couldn’t be healed, even in death.  
 “I see your face is just as pretty as ever.” Shepard commented.  
 Ashley was staring at his face, a small twitch in her jaw.  
 “Is something wrong?” Garrus glanced between the two of them.  
 “I think it’s your looks,” Shepard smiled slightly. “He took a rocket to the face before helping out with the Collectors.  
 “Sorry I wasn’t there to see it,” Ashley bit out. She dropped her gaze to the floor.  
   
 Shepard glanced between the two of them, wondering if she was missing something. A small shake of the head from Garrus suggested that he didn’t have any idea either.  
 “Speak freely, Ash. What’s wrong?”  
 “I just… I wonder what would have happened.”  
 “You probably would have been doing the same thing as Kaidan and not be able to help me at all,” Shepard shrugged.  
 “Wait, what? The LT didn’t help with that mission? I thought Joker didn’t mention him just because he was there from the start too!”  
 “It wasn’t that simple,” Garrus rumbled.  
 Shepard rolled her eyes and leaned back on the mako. “Nothing about any of that was simple. Cerberus tried to fuck me over in every way possible so I tried to fuck them over even more.”  
 “I pity them then.” Ashley snorted. “You can be quite the force when you’re pissed off Shepard.”  
 “Don’t I know it? I took their ship, took their crew, and took myself right back where they never wanted me to be.”  
 “The Alliance still screwed you over it though,,” Garrus argued.  
 Shepard waved off his concern. “I was beyond angry at him. I was going back to the Alliance as soon as I could, no matter what.”  
 “Seriously?” Ashley frowned.  
   
 She glanced over at Garrus. She wouldn’t deny that she was frustrated about it as well. But, she rathered the prison of her own making than the one Cerberus had built for her. Even thinking about it made her want a drink.  
 “ I should have been used to things like that though,” she admitted. “If anything can go to chaos, it will.”  
 “No simple missions,” Garrus agreed reluctantly. “But you’ve come back from each one.”  
 “Except the one that mattered.” Shepard stared at the wall bitterly. The _one_ time that she promised to come back alive, had _hoped_ to come back alive.  
   
 The universe was done tossing her bones for that lifetime though.  
 “So, Garrus. What happened? I mean you guys have lifespans like ours. You’re early aren’t you?”  
 “C-Sec job went bad. I took a shot for Tali.” Garrus looked sheepish. “I’m pretty sure that she won’t let me live it down.”  
 “I’m with you on that,” Shepard snorted. “I can see her hunting you down first day and yelling at you. Hell I’ll…” she trailed off.  
 “Hey, he’s… coping.” Garrus placed a hand on her shoulder. “Not always well but, he’ll make you proud. Although you’re probably right, you’ll probably get hell from him when he arrives.”  
 Shepard laughed weakly. “Well I guess it bodes well that he’s dying _after_ the turian that likes taking rockets to the face.”  
 “Hey, if we’re going to reminisce like that I need a drink or two. I believe I still owe you a drink.”  
 Shepard smiled, hooking her arms in with Ashley’s and Garrus’. “In that case, you can see if you can talk Chakwas into revealing where she keeps the hidden cache.”  
 Garrus let out a huff. “I miss the SR2, at least it had its own bar.”  
 Ashley leaned around Shepard to stare at them both. “You’re kidding me!”  
   
 Shepard shook her head. “I wish. Cerberus seemed to have some odd ideas about what was required on a frigate. Although, given the mission we were going on perhaps the bar was a good idea.”  
 “Right?” Garrus nodded. “A chance to drink to our demise, out with the glory of defeating the Collectors!”  
 Shepard laughed. “I don’t know what I would have done without you, Garrus.”  
 “There’s no Vakarian without Shepard,” he declared. “Actually, the galaxy started going to shit in general so maybe you just soak up all the bad karma or something for it.”  
 “I sure as hell hope not,” Shepard complained. “I’m not coming back to life just for the same shitty bad luck as before!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed the chapter title as well! We're starting to get some more people in and hopefully updates will be coming a little faster. Currently I'm either doing every two weeks, or whenever Remmy bugs me (mostly the latter. I try to keep the betas happy ya know ;))
> 
> I actually had a bit of frantic editing for consistency, because I accidentally included the Alpha Relay in here. There's one part in ME3 where someone comments about it and I remember being really confused about it the first time I played. You may have also figured out that I didn't have a perfect playthrough the first time I played. You'll be able to see a few more of those differences through the story.
> 
> Would be good to hear from some of you (super long afterlife AU makes me nervous), but mostly I'm really happy you're sticking around and all!


	12. Settling in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EDI gets a delivery that makes life more amusing for the crew, and her own life a little easier.

 EDI noted that morale of the crew seemed to be quite odd as of late. The fluctuations varied day by day, and the variance was greater after Garrus joined them. She found her own body was getting that much more uncomfortable over time, the sensors in the wrong spots were starting to rub just wrong.  
   
 It felt horrible for her to wish the SR2 out of commission; however, it was reaching the point where she was almost certain she was going to blow some of her memory. She was far too used to higher processing powers and capacity than the SR1 was capable of. It required almost constant adjustments and double-checking to be sure that she wouldn’t overload any of her systems.  
   
 She was fairly certain that Kalahira was helping her out in that aspect, but she was incapable of sensing such interference. It was difficult to keep that fact from Jeff, and she hated doing it. However, it should only be a temporary issue.  
  _Indeed,_ Kalahira’s voice reverberated through her being.  
   
 EDI felt a shudder through her. She lost control of the Normandy for a moment, yet the feeling was oddly familiar. She slowly stretched her senses out once more, and found extra sensors extending her awareness. She activated the opticals and looked at herself.  
   
 It was her body. Well, it was Dr. Eva’s body that she had reclaimed. EDI wished that she could take a breath in to truly savour the feeling. She could move again, and the external body should help with some of the processing power trouble she was having. Perhaps the first thing she should actually do was surprise Jeff. He had voiced some discontentment that his girlfriend was now back to only a ship and he was left without someone he could interface with.  
   
 Communication with Shepard – Priority  
   
 EDI tilted her head, even though Shepard wasn’t in the same room.  
 “EDI, what’s going on? That wasn’t like when we had other arrivals.”  
 “No,” she confirmed, in Shepard’s room of course. “Kalahira was making a different sort of delivery that required some shifting of my computing powers.”  
   
 Jeff Moreau requesting information at the bridge.  
   
 She would deal with that one later. She mentally swiped the notification away. Jeff would understand when he saw her.  
   
 “What sort of delivery?” Shepard sounded suspicious. EDI wasn’t entirely sure why she was so wary. Kalahira seemed to be working to keep those within the Normandy happy. Although, Shepard’s own moods were also quite variable lately. She suspected that they might mellow out after Major Alenko joined them. She partially hoped that when he did, the SR2 would be coming with him as well. However, she also hoped that the crew would survive, perhaps that was the secret behind the variation of the crew’s morale.  
   
 She would have to ask Jeff or Shepard at some point.  
   
 Comm request from Vakarian - Accept?  
   
 EDI shrugged and accepted it a moment after answering Shepard. “It should be visible on the bridge shortly.” Shepard grumbled something or other before EDI saw her moving off camera. EDI began to operate her mobile platform towards the bridge.  
   
 “Is there a problem Garrus?”  
 “Just checking that everything’s okay. Is that normal here?”  
 “Not entirely, typically my systems fluctuate when we have a new arrival.”  
 “You mean when someone dies.”  
 “Yes.” EDI paused behind Jeff’s chair. She could wait to surprise him. “There’s a disturbance in my systems at the time so that Kalahira can safely convey them to the area of the ship.”  
 “EDI, who died?”  
 “No one, this particular variation was something different. I regained a portion of my mobility.”  
 “A portion—? Oh, you got your body back?”  
 “Correct.”  
 “Has Joker—”  
 “I’m standing behind him right now. I suspect he won’t notice until the Commander arrives.”  
 “I have to see this.”  
   
 Comm disconnected.  
   
 EDI rolled the platform’s shoulders. She really should run a systems check on the platform, but she wanted to share this with Jeff and the Commander first.  
 “What the—EDI?” Shepard called. EDI turned the mobile platform to get a visual readout about the Commander’s reaction. Her heart rate was a little high, but the corners of her mouth were upturned. Happy. EDI mimicked the expression. Her systems had yet to recover, resulting in the Normandy’s lights flickering on and off to… she believed that was one of the tunes on Shepard’s radio.  
   
 Initiate communication with Garrus – Request declined.  
   
 EDI frowned as her sensors picked up Shepard approaching quickly. She was hoping that Garrus would be able to help her recalibrate some of the systems. Perhaps he was just trying to get here before the Commander so that he could see their reactions.  
   
 It seemed he ran to try and make it at the same time as the Commander; her sensors detected an anomaly in his breathing pattern when they both reached the CIC. She raised a finger to her lips, indicative of silence according to many cultural vids, although it appeared to be rude in others.  
   
 Shepard was already laughing silently as she slowly approached the bridge. Garrus seemed content to sit back and watch.  
 “Joker,” Shepard straightened suddenly, regaining control of her body. EDI had to commend the Commander’s control over her body’s reactions; many humans would take much longer to pull a straight face.  
 “What’s the situation?” Shepard continued.  
 “I don’t know, Commander, EDI hasn’t responded to my request yet. She’s normally pretty good about that. It seems like whatever happened really funked up her system.”  
 “It should all return to order with a few calibrations,” EDI commented from her mobile platform. She had debated talking from her normal console, however in order to ‘surprise’ him, she required that he turn around.  
   
 She began to worry when he remained still, not moving a muscle or even turning around. She began to run scenarios for why he might possibly react like this. It occurred to her that she would have to clean several databanks, as several no longer occurred due to their deathly state. Perhaps he had not heard her.  
 “Jeff?” She inflected her voice to indicate her worry, concern that he was alright.  
 He swivelled around, tears in his eyes and she fought to go embrace him, until a secondary process reminded her that his disease was no longer an issue. She walked quickly to enfold him in her arms.  
 “I’m here, Jeff.”  
 “Okay.” His voice was shaky, and a little bit of a laugh entered it. “Just don’t scare me like that. You didn’t answer and the ship was being weird.”  
 “I _am_ the ship, Jeff,” EDI corrected.  
 “You know what I mean.” Jeff wiped away his tears and waved at the Commander and Garrus. “You can go! You had your show now!”  
 “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry,” Shepard noted. EDI was detecting a note of jealousy from her, although she was uncertain to the cause.  
 “Yeah well, I try not to make a habit of it.” Joker leaned out of her embrace. She stood back to give him room. “Anyways, think we can fix the lights thing?”  
   
 “The bathroom water is also suffering from variable pressure and temperature at the moment and the elevator is inoperable,” EDI noted. She glanced through all her systems. Her calibrations were taking much longer than normal.  
   
 “I may require further assistance to prevent further systems from going offline.”  
 “EDI, is this _because_ you have your body back?”  
 “No Commander,” she corrected. “The Normandy’s systems required constant correction while I was in the system, the balance between Kalahira and I is rather delicate at times, resulting in the blackouts you’ve observed.”  
  _Calibrations will be less of an issue in the near future,_ Kalahira warned. EDI found it odd that they spoke directly to her when they seemed to have an equally good relationship with Shepard. Perhaps it was a topic that she should ask about at a later time.  
 “My calibrations are currently offset between a familiar body and an unfamiliar one, this disjunction is causing the errors you’ve observed.”  
 “Faulty toilets and flickering lights?” Shepard drawled.  
 EDI dipped her head. “While I am capable of correcting the systems myself in time, it may be beneficial to the crew’s mental state to return things to order sooner. To obtain this in the shortest time possible—”  
 “You need help,” Shepard finished. The Commander stretched her arms, a movement that EDI never quite understood undertaking before a particularly difficult task.  
 “Tell me where I need to look.”  
 “I’ll help if I can as well,” Garrus offered.  
 EDI paused to take stock of her current state.  
 “Root processes relating to size awareness and external functions are the key impact. Operation of the mobile platform unit is resulting in feedback that I will adjust to—”  
 “EDI, maybe you should just tell us which ones you want us to look at and fix the other ones yourself? It would probably be faster.”  
 EDI had assumed that the Commander would like to know the precise details. However, she was correct that the process would be done faster.  
 She waved a hand and screens showed up in front of Shepard and to the left of Joker. “The processes in front of you need to draw less energy, without losing any of my cognitive processes.”  
 “Hey, is that really safe?” Joker demanded.  
 “The lines that relate to my self-awareness are quite obvious. I believe the Cerberus scientists were quite thorough in their commentary throughout. Much of my processing power is temporarily rerouted into endless feedback loops to avoid overheating the Normandy.”  
   
 “You’ve been doing this on your own the entire time?” Shepard asked as she started scanning through the lines of code.  
 “It has filled the days,” EDI replied.  
 Shepard frowned as her fingers moved across the console. “You should have said something, EDI. We’re all dying of boredom here.”  
 EDI adopted her reporting stance. “I was uncomfortable in letting anyone near my core processes.” She was correcting some of the more important ones, or the minute ones that would result in a large difference. “It wasn’t something that required assistance until the mobility platform came online.”  
 “Yeah, why did that come through?” Garrus asked, his own eyes focused on his screen. The lights were beginning to stabilise, and the water pressure was becoming more regular. She made a note to herself to notify the crew as to the new occurrence to avoid further panic.  
   
 “Might have to do with my will, I dunno,” Joker suggested. He was keeping a close eye on Shepard, EDI wondered if he distrusted her to leave her self-awareness processes alone.  
 “How so, Jeff?” EDI regarded him with some curiosity.  
 “I uh, asked that your body be destroyed with mine. Well cremated and all that shit. It seemed romantic at the time. I guess they finally got around to it or something.”  
 “Well you can ask your executor why it took so long later,” Shepard suggested.  
 “Uh, yeah. I might wait a while for that.”  
 EDI read a sudden increase in heart rate from Jeff. He seemed to be extremely anxious about the topic. It was abnormal for him to be so nervous, so it must be a topic that would negatively affect the Commander.  
   
 “Jeff’s reaction suggests that Kaidan Alenko was his executor.”  
 Jeff turned to scowl at her. “Yeah, thanks. I wasn’t going to bring that up.”  
 “I was merely sidestepping several awkward questions, Jeff.”  
 “Yeah, while she’s basically probing your brain.”  
 “Commander Shepard finished her modifications before I made that comment, Jeff.”  
 She decided to record Jeff’s expression, she was certain that it would provide her a certain amount of amusement later.  
   
 His mouth was opening and closing, the closest resemblance she could find was to vids of fish.  
 “Yes, well now I want to hear it.” Shepard swivelled her chair to face Joker. EDI decided it was a good time to observe Shepard’s code before implementing it, while recording the upcoming confrontation.  
 “Yeah, well… look Commander, I didn’t really have anyone else I trusted, especially then. Kaidan and I were drinking buddies after… the Reapers. Hell sometimes Dr. Chakwas would join in. So yeah, he was my primary executor, not that I even had much shit. Both of us decided that our secondary should be Liara. She seemed the most stable of everyone, well after all the crying and stuff was over. I guess the asari find it easier to cope with since it’s bound to happen eventually. She’s back doing some weird ruins stuff again when she isn’t ripping apart people that think that the entire Reaper thing was a hoax.”  
   
 “Dr. Chakwas informed us in regards to that situation,” EDI interrupted.  
 “Yeah, well did she say that the SR2 was the top of their list for instigators? That our stealth drives were a lie and we were actually colluding with them the entire time?”  
 “No, that I didn’t hear.” Shepard’s voice was strained. EDI was certain that if she had a heartbeat of her own that it would have increased at the news.  
   
 “Perhaps Major Alenko and the others will fix the situation,” she suggested. A small smile came across her face as the last of her systems stabilised.  
 “We can only hope,” Shepard murmured. A mutter of assent passed through them all. Secretly, EDI hoped that she wouldn’t have to calibrate her systems again for some time.


	13. Looking upon a New Horizon (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More than a few new faces and confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to posting this one for a while! I hope you enjoy!

He had been wondering what it was like to die lately. He knew that such thoughts were dangerous, and there was an entire journal section of his omni-tool there to remind him exactly _why_ it was a bad idea. Without Joker, though, the edge felt much closer. Without Garrus, the trips into the Citadel felt much dimmer. His main thought, however, was that Shepard would never forgive him if he willingly took the leap off the edge.  
   
 It was odd the types of thoughts crossed your mind when you were utterly fucked. He could hear each escape pod being blown out of the sky, even as he tried to ensure that the crew were covered. He was unprepared, and yet he had been waiting for this moment.  
   
 Kaidan closed his eyes and let the explosions consume him.  
   
  _Do you think she’d forgive you? Would you forgive her?_  
 He wasn’t sure.  
  _Would you give up all you were if she would live?_  
 He didn’t know. He wanted to be there with her. He wanted to see her again. Flames licked at his body, searing him.  
   
 “What the hell is going on!” A familiar voice echoed through the room.  
 “All systems are offline.” That sounded like EDI, but EDI was dead.  
 “What the fuck is going on!”  
 He must be dreaming, a terrible dream where the SR1 was crashing, except his brain was superimposing EDI on the old VI.  
 “Oh, shit,” Shepard’s voice was faint. “Shit. All hands brace!”  
 The room shuddered under him, throwing him off the bridge. He coughed and trembled as he tried to get up. The room still felt like it was shaking, before everything stabilised.  
 “All systems online, recalibrations will be necessary. It also appears that the space we previously occupied has divided.” That was definitely EDI. Kaidan cracked open an eye and groaned.  
 “Hey soldier. Need a hand?” Shepard’s voice was cautious, she was never that cautious with him.  
 “Am I dreaming?” he croaked.  
   
 “No.” Shepard’s voice was oddly gentle. “What do you remember?”  
 Kaidan sat up and glanced around him. The Normandy looked normal, perhaps everything had been just a particularly bad dream.  
 “Kaidan?” Shepard repeated.  
 “I believe we should update the Major rather than draw this out, Commander,” EDI suggested.  
 Shepard shook her head. “Not yet.”  
 “What’s going on, Shepard did I miss something?” He levered himself up.  
 “What you remember first,” Shepard insisted.  
 “Commander! What happened? I managed to badger my way through to here, but…”  
 That voice was an impossibility. That couldn’t occur on the SR2. He pushed past Shepard, ignoring her swearing at the ceiling.  
 “Ash’,” he rasped.  
 Her eyes went wide. “Oh shit, LT?” Her eyes roved the CIC. “What… is this Normandy number two or some shit?”  
 “This is the SR2 rebuilt by Cerberus after the SR1 shattered with my body,” Shepard replied dryly.  
   
 “Would someone tell me what’s going on?” he demanded. “Is this just some huge prank, you found someone that looked like Ashley?”  
 Shepard touched his shoulder lightly, hesitating for a moment before she rested her head on his shoulder.  
 “No, it’s no prank,” she whispered. “We’re all dead. _You’re_ dead.”  
   
 He stared at her, the fire and the screams suddenly much clearer in his mind.  
 “Take a breath,” Ashley suggested. “Take a few actually. It’s disorientating.”  
 “It is?” Shepard asked.  
 “Not all of us were passed out for the first day, Commander. I know what I’m talking about. Come on LT, _breathe_.”  
 He took in a shaky breath. It was a little ironic that he went out almost the same way that Shepard did.  
 “You’re located in the SR2,” EDI decided to help. “We would have been able to offer more aid, however the change in systems took us all off guard.”  
 “Yeah, didn’t have any idea that could happen.” Shepard looked around at the ship.  
  _My apologies for the sudden rearrangement_. Kaidan automatically reached for where his pistol was, only to hit empty space. Shepard linked her arm in his, shocking him a little as she addressed the ceiling.  
 “What, no warning this time?”  
  _I informed EDI_.  
 “I wasn’t aware that the message was meant to prepare for sudden displacement.” EDI sounded equally irritated.  
  _I informed Commander Shepard that my sight is imperfect._  
 “Right Kalahira,” Shepard gave a little wave. “Although I should thank you for reducing my levels of stress. Is there another reason you’re around?”  
  _… There is more than Major Alenko. Larger… displacements in your words require a more direct intervention and concentration to ensure a proper transfer._  
 “Energy transfer,” Shepard whispered in his ear.  
   
 He nodded, expecting that the entire crew would get an update later. If not, well he would have words with Shepard. It felt a little too much like he was getting left in the dark again.  
  _If that’s all?_ The voice sounded a little irritated now.  
 “That’s it for now,” Shepard reassured the voice.  
 “So, does that mean I get an update now?” he asked. It all felt surreal. He wondered when he would have his breakdown. On Horizon he’d had months of rumours from Cerberus, now it was surprising to see her in front of him, acting just as he normally did. He could only assume that he felt fine because he was still in shock.  
   
 “In a minute, let me pull up who else is… oh shit.”  
 Kaidan closed his eyes. He could see, could remember each escape pod being shot down.  
 “What the happened?” Shepard wasn’t angry. She sounded as shocked as he felt. It took her a few breaths before she managed to stammer out the orders.  
 “EDI, can you call everyone up here?”  
 “All crew please report to the CIC,” EDI chimed.  
 Kaidan looked up. “That’s going to take some getting used to again.”  
 “I know right? Isn’t it great to have her back?” Joker’s voice rang over the comms.  
 Kaidan couldn’t stop the smile from crossing his face. If Shepard was here, he should have expected Joker to follow her.  
   
 “I will run the elevator from each floor to minimize time until the debriefing,” EDI informed them. “It is good to have the crew back.”  
 “And your body right?” Shepard snorted.  
 “I’m not as pleased as you might expect.” EDI was a little offended. “All systems require recalibration once more.”  
 Kaidan supposed he was missing half the story as Shepard and Joker dissolved into fits of laughter.  
   
 “Shepard,” he tried to get her attention again, but was thwarted this time by Ashley.  
 “So, _Major_ huh? What happened there?”  
 “Shepard died,” his voice sounded flat even to him. He had refused later offers of promotions, anything that would prevent him from running the Normandy around, the last bit of her that he had.  
 “Shit, so you got to deal with that too?”  
 “What?” he stared at her.  
 Ashley kept her eyes on her boots. “She was between places for a long time. I… I watched her body for two years, waiting for her to wake up until she disappeared.”  
 Kaidan closed his eyes. He didn’t think that Ashley might have had a similar experience.  
 “Well, I hope you dealt with it better than I did,” he offered.  
 “Shit, what happened?” Ashley crossed her arms and leaned back, almost exactly like Shepard.  
 Kaidan sighed and rubbed his temples. The elevator chimed with its first batch of passengers.  
 “What do you know?”  
 “Not much really. Shepard said it was pretty shitty dying twice at the same time and pretty much confirmed you two were together, but she’s mostly been trying _not_ to think about you.”  
 Kaidan frowned. “Why?” Trying not to think of him didn’t sound good, well those thoughts on his end were so that he didn’t _try_ to kill himself. That shouldn’t have been an issue with Shepard though.  
 “You’ll learn why soon enough,” Ashley dismissed him and watched the crew with wary eyes.  
   
 “I… yelled at her when I saw her.” He looked away, but found his eyes drawn to Shepard. She was reassuring the crew, convincing them to wait until the rest of the ship was present.  
 “Yelled? That’s putting it lightly,” Joker commented.  
 Kaidan flinched. He didn’t like thinking about it too much, no matter how much Shepard said it was behind them. He wouldn’t change his words on Horizon, but he wouldn’t have said it in front of her crew and not as angrily.  
 “She _was_ working with Cerberus at the time,” he pointed out.  
 “Wait _what!_ ” Ashley turned to face Shepard. “ _Skipper!_ Why didn’t you tell me about Cerberus!”  
 “Get in line for questions, Chief!” Shepard replied.  
 Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck, but was beaten to the punch by EDI.  
 “Shepard wasn’t given a choice in her allegiance after her resurrection. After the destruction of the Alpha relay, she returned to the Alliance almost immediately. Delays were due to—”  
 “Right, right. AI thing is still creepy if you ask me,” Ashley interrupted.  
 Kaidan laughed. “Yeah, it was freakier when she got her mobile platform.”  
 “I apologised for the distress it caused,” EDI sounded hurt.  
 Kaidan smiled slightly. “Yeah, no offense EDI but I need a little more notice before coming face to face with the same body that put me in the hospital.”  
   
 “Objection noted. I will file that for possible future occurrences.”  
 “If you remember it at all,” Ashley muttered.  
 Kaidan frowned. “What?”  
 Ashley shook her head and pointed to Shepard. “Later. Geez, did you guys keep _any_ of the old crew?”  
 Kaidan felt his face twist unpleasantly. “The SR2 was being retrofitted to fit with Alliance regulations when the Reapers hit Earth. We took the crew we had.”  
 “Well… there’s my foot in my mouth.”  
 “I do not… oh, Jeff informs me it is a human saying, carry on,” EDI faded back out.  
 “So, hospital?” Ashley returned to the topic.  
 Kaidan let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, Mars. You know Shepard, run to pick up a crew member and everything goes to shit.”  
 “Hey, it fixed things with us,” Shepard called over the people.  
 “Yeah, well I would have rather fixed things over a steak dinner.”  
 “In a way we did.” Shepard raised an eyebrow.  
 Kaidan coughed into his hand, a faint blush rising on his cheeks. At least he was fairly certain he was blushing from how Ashley was practically leering at him.  
   
 “So, you and the Commander. When did that end up happening?”  
 “Which time?” Joker asked.  
   
 “Huh?”  
 “Before, or after I died is what Joker’s referring to,” Shepard’s voice was dry.  
 “It’s too bad you missed their dances, Ash.”  
 Kaidan felt his throat tighten slightly at Garrus’ voice.  
 “I dunno Vakarian, they’re both shitty dancers as I recall.” Ashley raised an eyebrow.  
 “But that makes for half the show. It would have been like a… what do you humans call them? A rom-com? If it wasn’t for the entire Reapers thing.”  
 “If it wasn’t for the Reapers, we might not have made up though,” Kaidan pointed out.  
 “Score one for the Reapers,” Shepard snorted. “I never thought I’d say that. Reapers uniting galaxies. Actually, now that you’re here I want to run an idea past—”  
 “Shepard, the last of the crew have arrived,” EDI interrupted.  
   
 Shepard cleared her throat and Kaidan watched her don her familiar Commander guise, only slightly different from the ‘I want to rip you apart’ look.  
   
 “So, I imagine that a number of you are surprised to see me again.”  
 A chuckle rippled through the crowd.  
 “So I’ll just get down to it. We’re all dead. There’s a fairly basic choice for everyone: reincarnate, or let your energy seep back into the system.” Shepard cleared her throat to quiet the whispers. “It is possible to speak to other loved ones that have died, although you may wish to speak to Gunnery Chief Williams about that. I’m afraid I don’t really have any experience in that regard and when I have tried I’m absolutely abysmal at it.” She gave a nod to Ashley, who gave a short wave to everyone.  
 “You’ll find that many of EDI’s consoles have an updated codex. Any information we have in regards to our situation is in those files. If you think of further questions, please forward them to me. It seems like it took until death for someone to actually give a shit about anything I say.”  
   
 Another laugh rolled through them.  
 “That’s pretty much it for now, disperse and chat. I imagine there may be some more bleed through of other people you know in a while.”  
   
 There were a few complaints about the elevators, but there seemed to be groups gathering around each of the older crew members. Kaidan found himself isolating himself instead, up in the cockpit with Joker.  
 “So, what took so long to incinerate EDI’s body?” Joker demanded.  
 Kaidan sighed, and glanced at EDI, perched in her usual seat.  
 “No, seriously Kaidan. We were calibrating for what felt like _weeks_ when her body was incinerated.”  
 “Would you believe me if I said paperwork?”  
 “No.”  
 “Well it was. Partially that, and partially finding a company that _would_ incinerate questionable robotic parts. I had to do a fair bit of talking, _after_ my mourning period, to convince people she wasn’t Reaper tech.”  
 “I do contain components that are related to the Reapers though,” EDI interjected. “Although I can understand your desire to ignore that fact in light of the events.”  
   
 Kaidan nodded slightly. “Why would you have to recalibrate though?”  
 “Uh, did you notice that entire flashy light thing? For us the _entire ship changed_. It was freaky as all hell! We were on the SR1 before that!” Joker complained.  
 “It is good to be home though,” EDI frowned. “Despite the tragedy.”  
 Kaidan rubbed his forehead again.  
 “Oh, shit do you still get migraines? Is that still a thing because I don’t know if we even _have_ meds.”  
 “Dr. Chakwas has noted that her stores seem to refill themselves on the SR1 and rations also seemed to be self-regenerating,” EDI offered.  
 Kaidan stared at her. “I think I need to hit the bar.”  
 “Before that,” Shepard slipped up behind him. “I think that we need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter goes up by the end next Friday! I'm uh... kinda sorry for the cliffhanger? It's also really hard to do those chapter summaries without giving away people that die... is that bad of me? Would any of you want more detailed chapter summaries? Let me know here or tumblr if you want! (same user ID)


	14. Looking upon a New Horizon (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard reacts to Kaidan's death

 The moment she saw Kaidan on the floor it felt like part of her was completed. Following it, however, was a bout of anger. She hadn’t waited long enough for him. Each day without him was painful but she could survive, yet here he was, not even sixty days after her death with grey speckling his hair.   
   
Then her attention went to how _everything_ started to change. At first she thought she was crazy, that the lights were just shifting and the CIC was always that large. Then the lights started to flicker and EDI announced the multiple failures and the little speech she had ready for Kaidan went clear out of her head while she tried to figure out what the fuck was going on.   
   
It probably helped that it was one of the communication days. Ashley’s appearance seemed to shock Kaidan out of whatever illusion he was entertaining and stabilise him. She had hoped to give the entire crew an update all at once, however it seemed like it would filter through in bits and pieces again. At least she wouldn’t have to explain everything they knew, she could just point them all at the new codex entries and they could come to her with any further questions.   
   
She was never going to hear the end of the entire ‘dead for two years’ from Ashley or Kaidan. But now it was something they could possibly work out. Ashley was fielding most of the questions, leaving her time to try and get some alone time with Kaidan, hopefully without her devolving into the mess she felt like.   
   
She found herself automatically heading toward the starboard observatory. It was where she had always looked for Kaidan when they were both on the Normandy and it seemed like old habits died hard.   
“So, we’re hitting the bar and talking?” The little lilt in Kaidan’s voice alleviated some of the seriousness.   
“No, I just…”   
“Shepard.” He stopped, tugging her back towards him. Shepard took in a breath, intending to tell him that they should really do this behind closed doors. His arms enfolded her in a hug before she got a word out, forcing her to breathe in his scent.   
   
It hadn’t changed in death too much. He smelt a little more of whiskey now and less of the burnt eezo from his biotics.   
   
The next moment he was back at arm’s length and strolling through to the observation deck, leaving her reeling.   
“What? Did you just need to remember it was me?” She couldn’t help snapping as she followed him.   
His look reminded her of a kicked puppy.   
“Shepard, I had to _live_ without you for over forty years! Is it so horrible to want you in my arms again before you yell at me?”   
Shepard closed her mouth, she couldn’t deny it. She had only missed him for forty days and his lack of presence still ached. But she also couldn’t stop the little devil in her head telling her it was _too soon_.   
“Why forty?” she rasped. “You should have _lived_ Kaidan! I…” Her throat began to close from suppressing sobs. “I should have waited longer.”   
Kaidan took a hesitant step forward, and she stepped to meet him partway, to hold him again with shaky breaths.   
“Are you actually angry that I’m dead?” he whispered.   
Shepard sniffed. “I… I think I’m angry at myself.” Angry for being happy, angry for _being_ angry at him.   
Kaidan laughed, well it was a chuckle but she would bet that if she wasn’t halfway to tears that he would have broken down laughing.   
   
It was so comforting just to have him holding her, his face brushing against her hair.   
“Do you need a minute?” he asked, his voice was soft.   
She took a small step back, keeping hold of his hand as she made her way to the bar.   
“I think I need a drink.” At some point the tears had started to pour down her face and she figured she was less than thirty seconds away from being completely unintelligible.   
“As long as there’s whisky,” Kaidan joked.   
She let out a wet laugh and reached for where she _knew_ they had hidden the old bottle. The last drink they had saved for when the Reapers were gone.   
   
Kaidan whistled. “Wow, didn’t think that made it through the crash.”   
She shook her head and opened her mouth, but as she predicted, no words came out. Kaidan took it in stride, letting her pour in silence and only holding her hand tenderly when they raised their glasses in a toast.   
“To the Normandy, uniting in life and death,” he murmured. She nodded and they both took a hearty gulp.   
“So, I’m guessing we’re down to just yes or no questions?” Kaidan turned to face her, an inquisitive glint in his eyes.   
   
Shepard forced a smile onto her face and nodded.   
“You know me, always up for a challenge.”   
Shepard frowned slightly, she sure as hell hoped that wasn’t what got him and everyone on the ship killed. Kaidan took his time thinking of a question, or perhaps thinking of a way to word a question so that she could actually answer without blubbering all over the counter.   
“Are the others here too? Everyone from the SR1? Garrus? Chakwas?”   
She shook her head to the first but nodded to the last two. Kaidan let out a slow huff. Shepard put down her glass to access her omni-tool for the relevant codex entries.   
“Ouch, leaving me to read on my own?”   
Shepard snorted and moved over so that she was practically in his lap. Kaidan fixed that quickly enough by dragging her over so that he could read and hold her.   
She cleared her throat, trying to get words out while he read. “W-why a-are—?”   
“How am I so collected?” Kaidan broke his eyes from her omni-tool to look at her. She nodded, still stuck between crying that he was here now and that she should really have a hold of herself.   
“I went through it before. I guess it’s a little easier the second time through. Or maybe it just hasn’t sunk in yet. I haven’t decided.”   
   
“Well then, I suppose some things get better with age then.”   
Shepard stiffened as the door opened to reveal Chakwas holding a bottle of Serrice. She quickly made to get off Kaidan’s lap, but was hindered by his arm holding her firmly.   
“Please, it’s much less than what I expected.” Chakwas snorted. “There was a betting pool up on the bridge about how long until you two made up.”   
“I think we’re stuck until Shepard can yell at me some more.” It sounded like Kaidan meant to make a joke, but it came out far more hurt.   
   
Shepard frowned and drew his face to hers to lightly brush her lips across his before settling back into his lap.   
“Well, at least it’ll be better than Horizon. You both left the public eye before devolving into anything messy I see. I thought I might share a bit of what I have here and catch up.”   
Shepard nodded quickly. Chakwas at some point learned to understand Shepard-is-crying-babble. Kaidan looked at her a little strangely but didn’t contest her decision.   
“Well then.” Chakwas settled herself on the couch. “I imagine there’s plenty of questions on both sides. Although the one probably on everyone’s mind right now, Major, is _what happened?_ ”   
   
Kaidan’s lips pressed to the back of her neck for a brief moment before answering. “We were ambushed. The Normandy stopped to dump emissions and they were on us, taking out every escape pod.”   
Shepard felt a small shudder through his body. It reminded her a little too much of what happened on the SR1.   
“Any idea who?” Chakwas pressed.   
She could feel Kaidan’s gaze on her before he answered in the negative. She was fairly certain that he was lying for her sake, but she would have plenty of time to pry it out of him later.   
“Why are we _here?_ ” Kaidan asked.   
Chakwas smiled slightly, taking a sip of her brandy. “Well I suppose the easy answer is that this is our home. The more complicated one has to do with an interplay of energies I believe, but EDI would have the full answer to that.”   
   
Kaidan shook his head, staring thoughtfully at the black window. “I meant, all of us.”   
“Choice,” Shepard muttered, forcing it through her throat.   
Dr. Chakwas’ eyes lit up with understanding. “Right. When you died you heard a question didn’t you?”   
Kaidan’s posture froze. Shepard turned to see a slight look of panic in his eyes.   
“Don’t worry,” Chakwas reassured. “We all got one, although I believe the Commander is the only one that couldn’t actually give even the lack of an answer at first. If you don’t answer right away, it seems that this… space is where you go. Otherwise your energy either returns to the space and you no longer exist, or you’re reincarnated.”   
   
Shepard could almost hear Kaidan’s brain whirring with questions and suppositions and scenarios.   
“Others?” he asked tentatively.   
“Oh, we can talk to others just fine, there’s a day here or there that’s open for communications. Today is one actually, that’s how Ashley was able to transfer over so quickly despite never seeing the SR2. Garrus got a little rattled in the transfer, but he’ll be fine. I expect I’ll be doing a lot of checkups of several SR2 members however, _including_ yourself Alenko.”   
“Yes ma’am.”   
Shepard wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard Kaidan sound so demure.   
   
She took his hand in hers, relishing as his fingers closed to trap her own in his palm.   
“I’ll tell you about it later,” he whispered in her ear.   
She couldn’t stop the faint trill of excitement from running through her body, even though they _still_ needed to actually sit down and talk. Hopefully she wouldn’t actually break down again. That was beyond embarrassing.   
   
“It’s nice to see you both happy,” Chakwas noted.   
“Both?” Kaidan echoed.   
“Time is a little strange here, years are like days and we don’t need to sleep or eat. Shepard’s been moping around the ship for quite some time. She’s been getting a little better now although, I think Garrus helped a little.”   
“Dad,” Shepard muttered.   
Kaidan bent his head down so his ear was closer.   
Shepard cleared her throat and tried again. “Your dad.”   
   
Kaidan’s grip on her fingers tightened. “You.” He swallowed. “You met my dad? Here?”   
Shepard shook her head and tried to press closer to him. She had been desperate for Kaidan that she had thought to check if his dad was in a different area. Her mind had wandered to Kaidan’s stories about his home, beers and English Bay. It was the only time that a temporary transfer had been easy for her.   
   
“Is _that_ where you went? I had been wondering,” Chakwas mused. “Your father would be in a different area. You could visit him today or—”   
“I’ll go later.” Kaidan’s voice was hoarse, his grip almost desperate.   
Shepard squirmed a little, twisting to face him. His eyes had a hint of redness to them now. He didn’t know that his dad was dead; it seemed that his body hadn’t been found in the aftermath. So until she told him, he must have hoped. She touched her forehead to his. “Sorry,” she whispered.   
   
Kaidan brought her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “It’s okay, I… I probably would have checked sooner or later.”   
“I’m sorry,” she repeated for lack of other words.   
“It’s okay, you’re here and that’s all that matters now.”   
Shepard took in a shaky breath, slowly trying to regain control of herself again. She barely noticed Chakwas slipping back out the door.   
“I’m sorry I was angry,” she whispered.   
Kaidan brushed a finger over her lips. “If you keep that up, we aren’t going to be able to talk because you’ll keep crying,” he joked.   
Shepard hiccup-laughed.   
“We can call it even for Horizon, although I think you’re going to _actually_ get angry at me later.”   
“Probably,” Shepard admitted. There was much more time between them again, but she ended up with the better end of the bargain again. She still had to properly apologise for standing him up after the Reaper war. But for now, she was comfortable in his arms knowing that he would be there in the days to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's the Normandy and most of the crew! Sadly not a lot of them will have a lot of screen time because this is already freaking massive. I have been contemplating doing some asides after it's all done though, let me know if you would be interested in that!


	15. Meeting the Parents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard has been putting this meeting off too long.

It was a little strange to have Kaidan back. Shepard was certain that she would eventually get tired of him hovering around her, but for now she enjoyed his presence. It wasn’t like their attention was needed elsewhere right now. However, she couldn’t deny that there was an odd tension on the ship. It seemed to center around Kaidan, but every time she asked him about it he deflected the question.   
   
Today, though, it felt like most of the tension on the ship was around her. It was contact day and she wanted to go with Kaidan to see his father, but she hadn’t broached the topic with him yet. She also wasn’t entirely sure how to bring someone else along with her, and couldn’t even begin to explain it to Kaidan.   
She let out an angry huff, drawing concerned looks from all around her and one chuckle.   
   
She frowned at the unfamiliar voice, habitually turning around, to see Kaidan’s father with a finger to his lips. She quashed her instinctual reaction, some of the N practice that actually stuck and let her eyes fall to Kaidan.   
“Thinking,” she commented.   
“About?” Kaidan closed the gap between them.   
She fought the heat in her face down. “Today.”   
Kaidan looked so puzzled. “What’s today?”   
Shepard fought to keep her eyes on his face, but it seemed like his dad decided to take mercy on her.   
“Kaidan.”   
She expected that Kaidan would turn quickly in surprise, but his movements were oddly slow, controlled. She laughed inwardly at herself, of course Kaidan would bring his control back into everything again.   
“Dad.” Kaidan’s voice was thick. “How?”   
“It’s a contact day,” Shepard supplied. “I was um… going to try and figure out… but well…”   
Kaidan’s father looked a little puzzled at her. “Close friends and family know when a loved one passes. It’s just… something you know.”   
Shepard rocked back on her heels, holding her hands behind her back. “Well, everyone here is the family I have.”   
   
Kaidan slid his arm around her shoulders and drew her close, offering his comfort. She definitely felt her face burn as she looked at Kaidan’s father. They were eerily similar and different at the same time. She noticed the first time they met where Kaidan’s grey hair came from, and the little quirk in his smile but their postures were so different. She may have also neglected to tell his father about their relationship.   
“I didn’t know that,” Kaidan’s father offered as an apology. His eyes kept flickering between the two of them. “Perhaps I should have asked you more questions when you found your way to me, Shepard.”   
   
“What _did_ you two talk about?” Kaidan glanced at her, his arm still wrapped around her shoulders.   
“You mostly,” Shepard commented. “What you were up to during the Reaper war, how you were as a subordinate.”   
“Nothing about Ilos?” Kaidan arched an eyebrow.   
Shepard cleared her throat. “I may have left a few things out… I wasn’t going to meet your _parents_ without you and just say that we risked our careers together!”   
“Shepard,” Kaidan admonished. “You were just procrastinating.”   
“Of course! They’re your _parents!_ ” Shepard was fairly certain that Kaidan’s dad was going to kill himself laughing at this point. “Aren’t they supposed to do that entire ‘treat my boy right’ type of thing?”   
   
Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Life isn’t a vid’, Shepard.”   
“It feels like it sometimes, or a horribly written story,” she grumbled. She held out her hand tentatively. “I’m sorry for the omission. I’m Jane Shepard and I was with your son for,” she glanced at Kaidan. “What are we calling it?”   
Kaidan looked thoughtful. “On and off for three years or so?”   
Shepard snorted. “I was clinically dead for two of those.”   
“That’s the off part.”   
Her hand was grasped lightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m John Alenko.”   
Shepard raised an eyebrow and glanced between the two of them.   
“Mom named me,” Kaidan offered as an explanation. “It was… dad’s name before moving to Canada.”   
Mr. Alenko nodded and let go of her hand before stepping back to an attention stance.   
   
“So, on and off for three years, what went wrong? Besides dying,” he chuckled.   
“Cerberus,” Shepard offered as an explanation. “Cerberus brought me back from the dead and did their damnedest to isolate me.”   
Kaidan’s grip on her shoulder tightened slightly before loosening. “I didn’t really react well to that.”   
“You were just attacked by a bunch of bugs,” Shepard shot back. She could feel Kaidan suppress his laughter at her deadpan.   
“The Reaper war brought us back together though, after Cerberus landed Kaidan in the hospital.” She glanced over at him. “Things were definitely rocky but, we’re here now.”   
She bit her tongue to prevent herself from spilling out yet _another_ apology. In front of his dad really wasn’t the time.   
   
“It’s a good way to know you’re good together,” Mr. Alenko offered. “God only knows that my marriage had its own rocky paths, but it made us stronger for it. You mentioned Ilos too, what was that about?”   
Shepard swallowed. “That was around the end of when we were chasing down Saren.” She had detailed that particular event, but left out certain aspects. “It’s when we, uh, cemented our relationship.”   
“We were dancing around regs before that but well. If Ilos got out we probably would have been court martialed.”   
“I dunno, we did just finish saving their asses at that point.”   
“You let the Council die Shepard. I don’t think that the Alliance would have played nice. They certainly didn’t after you died.”   
   
Shepard sighed; it felt like she was always leaving him behind. She slipped an arm around his waist, drawing him closer. She would just have to do her best to make sure that it wouldn’t ever happen again.   
“That’s unfair, Kaidan,” Mr. Alenko scolded. “I recall you moping around the house for over a month after that. I had to kick your ass back to the Alliance, give you the ‘work is the best distraction’ speech again.”   
Kaidan straightened slightly. Shepard watched him with interest. She was slightly curious about that speech now, and the _again_ part of it.   
“It’s okay,” she murmured, letting her head touch his shoulder lightly. “We’re here now.”   
Mr. Alenko cleared his throat. “Yes, how was your mother? I regretted not being able to communicate with her but…”   
“Reapers.” Shepard nodded.   
Kaidan looked a little thoughtful. “Well she’s still pretty healthy, she’s slowing down a lot now though. I send her most of my pay the rest uh…” He looked a little bashful and met Shepard’s eyes for a moment. “The rest is either equipment or to the Shepard Foundation.”   
Shepard snorted, that was extremely corny of him, but she had to admit that charity did a load of good to get kids off the streets as well.   
   
“It’s very you,” she offered.   
Kaidan smiled slightly, warming her heart. He looked back to his father. “She still misses you. Your wedding picture is still beside her bed and I think she kisses it goodnight every night.”   
“Please tell me you didn’t do anything like that for me,” Shepard muttered.   
Kaidan arched an eyebrow. “Only if you do. EDI told me about your holopicture.”   
Shepard coughed lightly. She had not kissed the picture at any time. She had however, spent far more time staring at it than checking her mail, which was her typical excuse to run up to her cabin. She just felt like she wasn’t quite as watched, even though she was almost certain that she was. Her tech could only find so many bugs after all.   
   
“You also never mentioned,” Mr. Alenko switched the subject, “What was your focus with the Alliance, Commander Shepard?”   
Shepard straightened slightly. “I’m an engineer sir. I’m not quite good enough to tell you exactly how the Normandy runs, but I understood a good deal more than what the engineers would tell me.”   
   
“Besides the best place to throw a turret,” Kaidan murmured in her ear. She elbowed him in the side gently.   
“Those turrets saved us more than not,” she defended. “Same as Sparky.”   
“I’m sure Kaidan’s enjoyed having someone else to talk to about tech. Especially one that actually pays attention for more than five minutes,” Mr. Alenko intervened.   
“I’m sure I’ve held yours for ten before, Dad.”   
Mr. Alenko shrugged. “I had to be good at faking attention. Your mother would have called me out on it more otherwise. You might find that talent comes in handy yourself.” He glanced between the two of them before laughing.   
   
Shepard was certain that he was laughing at how scandalised the two of them must have looked at the statement. She glanced over and met Kaidan’s eyes and cracked a smile of her own. Soon enough they were all chuckling at the thought.   
“There was only so much I could listen to her stories though.”   
“Mom always liked retelling the good ones,” Kaidan murmured.   
“Yes, but take into account I heard them for twice as long as you did.”   
   
“That would drive me mad. Oh wait, you and Garrus _already_ do that.” Shepard rolled her eyes.   
“We do?” Kaidan’s eyebrows drew closer together.   
“The Mako,” Shepard summarised.   
Kaidan coughed into his hand. Shepard grinned, it wasn’t too often she was able to catch him off guard like that.   
“I’m not sure why Garrus complained so much actually. I didn’t take him that often. Or you.”   
“Yes, you kept taking Wrex and Liara.” Kaidan’s voice took on a sullen tone.   
Shepard rolled her eyes and leaned into him a little. “Come on, I had all the engineering aspects down and I worried about you. Which was stupid, I know. But Wrex? Whoever wanted to face us _really_ had to want something.”   
“Wrex is a krogan,” Kaidan supplied. Shepard glanced back to his father and blushed slightly, she had almost forgotten he was there listening.   
“I can actually take you to see the rest of the crew if you like! Not everyone is here yet, but we have a spattering now.”   
   
“I’d love to,” Mr. Alenko smiled. There was a hint of something in his eyes that Shepard couldn’t quite place. Shepard detangled herself from Kaidan and started walking to the elevator. She started when Mr. Alenko looped his arm into hers.   
“So I take it you haven’t met many parents before,” he murmured.   
Shepard glanced back at Kaidan, who seemed a little more nervous but keeping his distance. “I never really had relationships before. It was give and take. It took,” she swallowed down the memory of Akuze. “It took a lot before I fixed that.”   
“Oh?” Mr. Alenko pushed.   
Shepard pressed the elevator button and closed her eyes for a moment. “I grew up on Earth, but I didn’t have any family. I only had my gang. I learned that in order to have anything for myself, I either had to give something to someone else, or take it by force. It took a long time before I was good enough to take anything and by then I was _very_ good at taking.” She glanced back at Kaidan. At some point, she had realised that if her skills were good enough for her gang to start using her hacking skills to get into better places, that _she_ could be in a better place.   
   
“The streets were my teacher, I always had to make sure I knew more to protect myself. I had to be indispensable.” She let out a dry laugh. “I still do I guess. I needed to get out of the belief that everyone wanted something from me. Even then though, old habits are hard to break, mindsets even more so. I was still that gang kid until Akuze.”   
   
Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could still see the Maw in front of her and the door slamming shut. She still couldn’t quite remember how she managed to survive.   
Mr. Alenko patted her arm, snapping her out of the daze. “I’m sorry to have brought up some bad memories.”   
Shepard shook her head. “No, every now and then memories like that need to bleed.” She glanced over at Kaidan. “It wasn’t something I shared before either.”   
Kaidan shrugged and stepped into the elevator with them. “I read your file after you died. I wanted to try tracking down your next of kin.”   
“That must have kept you busy,” Shepard snorted.   
“It kept him alive,” Mr. Alenko noted. His voice was soft, almost pained. “Looking for someone you knew that he could pass the word onto. I think that knowing there was no one else… no one that _knew_ you as a person kept him alive.” He patted her arm once more. “For that, I have a lot to thank you for, Commander Shepard. Just try to keep him together for me.”   
“Right,” Shepard muttered, stepping out onto the crew deck. “So, Garrus. He’s a turian we picked up on the Citadel.” She was fairly certain that this meeting was more levels of awkward than she had hoped, but at the same time she couldn’t help the small flourish she felt in her heart.


	16. Sanity Check

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little sanity check from everything

Garrus kept an eye on Shepard. After the last contact day she seemed a little more frazzled than usual. Enough so that she was actually blanking out on anything that Alenko said and he was fairly certain that it wasn’t because she was undressing him with her eyes or anything of the sort.  
   
 No, it looked like she was itching to go back to the battlefield. He knew that he wished that he _could_ just shoot something, but he hadn’t quite figured out the reloading mechanisms with the guns. There weren’t exactly thermal clips lying around, and if they needed them later it would be a waste to just fire them for no reason.  
   
 “What’s on your mind?”  
 Garrus resisted the urge to jump to attention at Shepard’s voice.  
 “Thermal clips,” he answered. It was true enough, although his line of thought _before_ that was quite different.  
 “What about them?” Shepard’s brows drew together, confusion if he recalled correctly. Humans were so much more expressive than other species. It was almost helpful, if some of them weren’t such good liars with their bodies as well as their words. Shepard wasn’t too good at that though, but she excelled in scaring the pants off of anyone threatening another being.  
 “I was wondering if there’re spares around or if the rounds we have are it.”  
 Shepard’s stare made him feel like she was seeing into his soul. It was a little uncomfortable after a time.  
   
 “You didn’t read—no wait that was something we realised.” Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose.  
 Garrus felt his mandibles flaring slightly.  
 “Things regenerate Garrus, at least while we’re in this space. We’ve been drinking regenerating liqueur for a while now.”  
 Garrus wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed or upset. On one end he could have been drinking that dextro-liqueur instead of saving it for when Tali arrived; on the other end he _really_ should have noticed that.  
 “Are there no side effects to it?”  
 Shepard opened her mouth, then closed it again, her head tilting slightly to one side. “You know what? I’m not sure.”  
 “I’ll forgo that then.” Garrus nodded slightly. “But it’s reassuring to know that we won’t be completely screwed if something nasty comes after us here.”  
 Shepard stared at him. “Please don’t jinx us.”  
 He couldn’t help but laugh. “Shepard, you’re on the ship, I think that’s all the jinxing it needs. It’s fine though as long as I’m here to pull our asses out of the fire.”  
 “You?” Shepard arched an eyebrow. “How many times have I saved your ass Garrus?”  
 “No less than I’ve saved yours. Speaking of though.” He hesitated a moment. “Where’s your shadow?”  
 Shepard’s clueless stare worried him a little. She and Kaidan had been glued to the hip since the SR2 arrived, for them to suddenly be apart was a little concerning.  
 “Kaidan,” he clarified.  
 Shepard’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh. I told him to go sit with Joker for a while and I wasn’t able to disappear anywhere.”  
 “Finally got to you?”  
 Shepard shook her head. “But I don’t _want_ it to get to me. If we start with small things it should be fine. I told him I would just chat with you and then come back up.”  
 “A sanity check?” Garrus didn’t think that human necks could snap around that quickly.  
  Shepard dropped her head in a hand afterwards. “Sorry, it’s a… Kaidan thing. Yes, sanity check.” The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. “We could all do with some of those in the days to come though huh?”  
 “Yeah, getting used to the not sleeping thing is a little hard for a while.”  
 “Run out of things to calibrate yet?”  
 Garrus shrugged. He was fairly certain that EDI kept shifting things just off so that he always had something to do, but he didn’t want to call her on it because it was nice to _have_ something to do. He was fairly certain that the Commander was slowly going insane.  
   
 “Say, I haven’t seen many of the others around much.”  
 Shepard sighed. “Family for the most part. We talk on and off, but they weren’t necessarily attached to the Normandy and after Kaidan arrived…”  
 “Maybe they just want to wait until the honeymoon period is over,” Garrus suggested.  
  _“What?”_  
 He never thought he’d seen Shepard look so horrified. He wondered if he had gotten the saying wrong, but he was fairly certain he had heard it around the Citadel in regards to lovey-dovey couples. He wasn’t even sure how to clarify it to Shepard, but it seemed she was doing it for him.  
 “Garrus, a honeymoon is the period of time after humans get married. Usually when they get… intimate.”  
 His mandibles flared, that did make the saying a little less innocent than he had intended.  
 “Well, at least you and Kaidan are practically married already,” he commented.  
   
 He reflexively took a shot of Shepard’s face to show Tali later. He supposed the correct emotion to associate with it was ‘horror’. The only thing that was missing was blood and screams, but usually the two followed fairly close behind Shepard.  
 “I can’t believe this,” she muttered.  
 “His dad approves,” Garrus pointed out. “It was fairly obvious that he was happy with both of you when you came by to talk.”  
 “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”  
 He wasn’t certain why Shepard was so distressed by the conversation.  
 “Well… we can shoot things if it makes you feel better?” he suggested.  
 Shepard shook her head and sighed. “I want to _blow something up!_ ”  
 He had forgotten that she preferred to set things on fire and _then_ shoot them while they were panicking. That or set up turrets: she liked her distance and may have made a good sniper if she practiced.  
 “No.”  
 “No?”  
 “No I’m not training with the sniper rifles.” She rolled her eyes. “Your thoughts are clear as day. I get along fine with my omni-tool, a heavy pistol, and an SMG.”  
   
 Garrus felt his mandibles twitch slightly before he dipped his head. “As you say. We could probably set up some hand to hand matches as well though. I imagine some of the crew are starting to get restless as well.”  
 Shepard rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ll see what I can do, it’s hard when we have a lot more people coming and going. Are you okay?”  
 Garrus stared at her, confused. He had been worrying about her so he wasn’t sure why _he_ shouldn’t be fine.  
 “Tali. You left her behind.”  
   
 Garrus felt his heart throb slightly and he looked back to the battery. “I haven’t thought about it much.”  
 “Seriously?” Shepard grabbed his shoulder to stare into his eyes. “You haven’t thought about her _once_ since you’ve been here?”  
 He thought about her when he woke up in the SR1. In fact, if they slept he would be almost certain that he would miss her every time he woke up. Except that he didn’t need to sleep, so the only time they would share their thoughts and space were gone now. The hours before they slept, and the hours when they woke were for them alone and always had been.  
   
 “What happened with you two?” Shepard whispered.  
 Garrus started; he had forgotten she was there for a moment.  
 “We’re fine, Shepard.” He swallowed a small lump in his throat. “Just, the times I would miss her aren’t here really. I mean occasionally I think it’s been a while since she called but then I remember why she isn’t and it makes me happy.”  
 Shepard looked almost hopeful at that. “I hope I can get there some day,” she murmured. “Hope.”  
 “You were always good at dishing it out,” Garrus offered.  
 Shepard let out a snort. “I didn’t really keep much back though.” She seemed lost in the distance before shaking herself out of it.  
   
 He found himself wondering again what exactly happened to her on the Citadel before she destroyed the Reapers. He only remembered the trip back, and the blind hope that she was still alive somewhere on Earth. Unfortunately, it seemed that Shepard gave all her hope away, and left none for herself.  
   
 It felt wrong that he was excited at the first news of the pro-Reapers. It was the first time that Joker and Kaidan had shown anything but remorse and a woodenness that would make any AI proud. It actually felt _good_ when they yelled at him for tiptoeing around the subject.  
   
 “It was a pretty hopeless situation for a while,” he dragged himself out of the past. “The fact we found any hope is well, a miracle.”  
 Shepard sighed and stepped back to lean against the doorframe. “Do you think I’m being stupid about Kaidan?”  
 Garrus shook his head and turned to face her. “I think you’re being practical about it. You know how long he’s been without you, so you’re letting him stay close but you’re making sure you still have time to yourself. Of course,” he paused for dramatic effect, “If he gives you trouble I’d be more than willing to test my aim on his kneecaps.”  
   
 He was worried he crossed the line when Shepard stayed quiet, just looking at him. Until she started laughing so hard she couldn’t talk. He wasn’t quite sure what was so funny about his promise, perhaps there was a human culture that he wasn’t aware of where his promise was something funny.  
   
 It seemed like it would take Shepard a while to get her breath back, so he started searching on his omni-tool. He didn’t know _how_ parts of the extranet worked here, but he wasn’t going to question it too much. He tried a few alternate phrasings until he found something that might look close enough. His jaw slackened slightly as the implications hit him. Although, it also wasn’t too bad since Shepard always called them her only family. In that sense, it made complete sense that he would threaten Kaidan. He was almost wishing he had done that when he rejoined the Normandy now. That would have certainly gotten more laughs in a time they needed them.  
   
 “Is that Shepard?” Kaidan’s voice crackled over the comms.  
 “Yes,” Garrus answered. “You can hear her from there?”  
 “EDI was worried,” Joker piped in. “Something about low levels of oxygen. Is she _actually_ laughing?”  
 “Yes. I stumbled across a phrase she found amusing.”  
 “A joke? Let’s hear it!”  
 Garrus glanced at Shepard, and she waved at him to go ahead. He cleared his throat slightly and repeated the threat word for word. He was a little worried at how Kaidan would take it, but it seemed the human was more than willing to roll with the punches and just sighed.  
 “Shepard _would_ find that funny. I think we need to trade in your sense of humour, Commander. Yours is clearly flawed.”  
 Shepard wheezed slightly when she retorted. “It’s better than Traynor’s!”  
  _“Hey!”_ A faint voice was heard over the comms.  
 “Ouch, where’s the love?” Kaidan’s voice filtered over.  
 Garrus watched Shepard’s mouth open and close for a few moments before Kaidan’s voice echoed through the room again. “Too soon?”  
 “Yeah,” she whispered. “Yeah.”  
 “Oooohhhkay. I’m going to ask Alenko about that now. Glad you aren’t dying though Commander! Over and out!”  
   
 Garrus glanced at Shepard. It seemed that Joker was getting one side of the story, leaving it to him to get the other. “Shepard?”  
 She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s… it’s just something his dad pointed out to us later. I know we still have issues. Hell I know Kaidan’s hiding something, maybe a few things.”  
 Garrus’ mandible flared again. He was fairly certain what at least one of those things were, but it wasn’t his place to tell Shepard about it.  
 “I think we just… we need to convince each other we aren’t going to disappear again and we’ll be doing… whatever together.”  
 “You haven’t told him all of it yet have you?” Garrus asked.  
 “He can read.” Her voice was oddly harsh.  
 “Shepard,” Garrus cajoled. Her eyes got hard and he felt a small quiver run down his plates.  
 “If I think about how I’ve been told the chances are slim with many of us Garrus, I’m going to regret it. I _will_ bring everyone that wants to come with me through. The universe owes me enough that I feel I should be able to remember my _friends_.”  
   
 Garrus nodded slightly. He had forgotten what it must have felt like for Shepard, to put her hopes on the future only for it to disappear under her feet.  
 “Just know that we, that I’m here for you. Until the end.”  
 She nodded slightly, her throat bobbed. “I should go. I’ll talk to you later.”  
 She turned and he watched door slide closed behind her.


	17. Some Omni-gel and WD40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain engineer joins the group

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun story. This title was originally an engineering joke and titled Some Duct Tape and WD40, but at some point in my porting between Drive and Word, the title changed to Some Omni-gel. Which I liked a lot more and made just as much sense (and feels a lot funnier).

 Tali felt the cough wracking her body with every breath. She was thankful that at least she wasn’t alone, even though the only one she wished was here had left long ago. Somehow she knew it was time, she had lived a long life and truly _lived_ it. She may not have lived to the length of others, but she was glad for the time she had.  
   
 “Is there anything you need, Tali?” Raan’s hand closed around her’s.  
 Tali stared at the ceiling. What she truly wanted was to see everyone again, for the good times to return. Instead, she would make do with what was available to her.  
 “I want to see the sky again, without my mask.” Her suit had gone back on when she had contracted the disease, preventing others from catching it and it was still their best method for reliable drug delivery.  
 There was a small hiss as Raan placed her own mask on and moved to seal the room.  
   
 “Wait!” Four figures barged into the room. Raan let out a sigh and finally sealed the room. Tali tried to prop herself up to see who had arrived. Two of them she knew to be Wrex and Grunt from their armor.  
 “Let me,” the same voice said.  
 “Liara?” Tali slurred.  
 “Yes, I’m glad I could make it. I only wish I could have gotten here sooner.”  
 It was strange to see Liara with her entire face covered instead of her typical breather mask.  
 “Hmph, can’t believe the best engineer I knew got bested by a cold.” Wrex snorted.  
 Tali let out a weak laugh that wracked her body with more coughs. There was a hissing sound as Raan removed Tali’s mask, letting her look upon her friends clearly once more.  
   
 “I got bested by old age, Wrex.”  
 The krogran harrumphed and crossed his arms.  
 “Took down those AI idiots first though,” Grunt chuckled.  
 Raan looked at them with what Tali was certain was her disapproving face. She had managed to scare away a lot of her visitors, but Tali would be surprised if these particular ones scared at all.  
 “Jacob.” She nodded towards him. “How’s your family?”  
 “Good, still trying to convince the eldest that she _really_ shouldn’t name a kid after Shepard.” He chuckled.  
 Tali smiled. “She’d laugh at that.”  
 “You’ll give her all our best right, Tali?” Liara finished propping her up so she could see them properly and took a hold of her hand.  
 “Of course. I’ll… tell the rest of them too.”  
 Keelah, were her eyes always so heavy?  
 “Tali, I’m… I’m happy to have been your squadmate.” Liara’s voice was full of tears. Tali had mostly seen her at the funerals after she’d had a chance to compose herself. She supposed that this was the first time that one of them hadn’t died on the job.  
   
 Perhaps that was something that she could be proud of. She’d also be able to rub it in Garrus’ face if she saw him. She hoped that she could see him. It was still hard going to sleep and waking up without hearing his voice or feeling him next to her every day.  
 “I’m glad to have met you all,” she murmured. “Any messages for the other side?” she joked.  
   
 Grunt laughed. “Tell Shepard that she had better be ready to take over the place! When we come to visit her we’ll be ready to go!”  
 Tali nodded at the young krogan. Wrex seemed to take more time to think his ideas through. The genophage cure coupled with Shepard’s death had greatly affected him. To the point he _had_ called his first daughter Shepard. Contrary to humans, the krogan considered it the highest expectation of someone, thus the name was a rarity.  
 “Tell Kaidan I’m taking care of everything,” Liara murmured in the silence. “I… I won’t let _any_ of this slide.”  
 Tali smiled slightly. “You never did, Liara. Always fighting. I hope… I hope that you find someone some time to share your life with.”  
 “I did.” Liara closed her eyes. “I shared it with all of you.”  
 “You know what I—” A long stream of coughs cut her off. Wrex and Liara held her body as she felt herself beginning to drift.  
 “Tell Shepard that the grass is green now,” Wrex ordered. Tali blinked once tiredly and tried to nod.  
 Raan murmured, “Sleep now, Tali vas Normandy. Keelah se’lai.”  
   
 Tali felt a sigh leave her body as she began to drift into the darkness.  
  _Why fix a problem that would fix itself?_  
  The question puzzled her. What problem? There wasn’t enough information for her to answer. Even as she reached to ask she found herself awake with more energy than she had felt for the last several months. The only problem was that she was most definitely not on Rannoch or the Citadel. Or if she _was_ on the Citadel, their floors had gotten much colder and she had _definitely_ had too much to drink.  
 “Shit,” a familiar voice muttered before she felt a great pain in her side. “Oh _shit!_ That, fuck. Donnelly! Get Shepard! Daniels! Get Vakarian!”  
 She heard two ‘yes sir!’s taking off at a run as she rolled over and groaned.  
 “Sorry about that, Tali. We’ll have lights back in a few. I didn’t think that you’d be down here.”  
   
 Adams, that voice was Adams. She held her head. She must have _really_ had too much to drink.  
 “To sum things up, yes you’re dead. You’re on the Normandy SR2 and there will be some people with questions for you, but I think they’ll be happy to see you as well.”  
 “Others?” She blinked as the lights came back on. Adams started, completely understandable since he hadn’t ever seen her face before.  
   
 “Your mask—are you okay?”  
 “Yes, we’ve been able to go without our suits for a while now.”  
 “Tali!” She felt the crush before seeing the face. But the smell was familiar.  
 “Keelah,” she gasped. “Can’t. Breathe.”  
 “Right, uh sorry about that.” Garrus took an embarrassed step back.  
 Tali laughed and stepped towards him and hugged him. “I missed you, you bosh’tet! _What were_ you thinking? No back up and no engineers? What would Shepard have said?”  
 She smiled a little, certain that he was more than a little embarrassed.  
   
 “Should I let you two have some time?”  
 Tali let go of Garrus to take in the sight before her. She would never be able to forget Shepard’s voice. Tears came unbidden to her eyes. Shepard was here. She was fine. Well, they were all dead, so in that sense they _weren’t_ fine, not the in the living world. Kaidan was hovering behind her as well. There was an odd distance between the two of them she wasn’t sure she’d seen before, but for now she was just happy to see her Captain in front of her.  
   
 She stepped forward and drew Shepard into a hug as well. “I. It’s good to see you again Shepard.”  
 “Oh, don’t cry Tali,” Garrus pleaded. “I don’t know what to do when you cry!”  
 Tali let out a watery laugh and waved Garrus and Kaidan to join them. Garrus joined the hug readily, but Kaidan hesitated a moment before wrapping his arms around them all.  
   
 She was home again. Her home away from home.  
 “I have messages for you, Shepard, Kaidan.”  
 “Oh?” Shepard murmured. She made no move to leave the hug so Tali kept her arms just where they were.  
 “Wrex said that the grass is green. Grunt wants to take over the afterlife. Jacob, I don’t know if Jacob said anything… Liara…” Tali swallowed and looked up at Kaidan, pointedly looking away from her. “Liara wanted Kaidan to know that she’s taking care of everything and won’t let it slide.” Kaidan’s eyes slid to hers for a moment in shock, before looking away again. She wondered how much he had told Shepard, if he had at all.  
   
 Someone let out a small cough and she let her arms fall. The four of them separated reluctantly to see Mordin.  
 “Tali back, excellent. Rannoch recovered?”  
 “Yes, Shepard helped us after the genophage. After…” she swallowed. The Conduit run was something they all still had trouble talking about. “Everything, I pushed to rebuild the geth. It wasn’t really their fault and…” She glanced at Shepard. She thought it would have made Shepard proud. She had learned a lot from EDI and Legion and knew what _not_ to do this time.  
 “And what happened?” Shepard’s eyes were intense.  
 Tali swallowed and found herself at attention out of habit before forcing herself to relax. “The geth and quarians have been working together for the last twenty years to rebuild Rannoch. I spent a long time with Joker too, trying to rebuild EDI.”  
   
 Shepard shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been possible.”  
 “The most we got was a VI,” Kaidan admitted. “It didn’t feel the same.”  
 “Well, it would have helped too if every system wasn’t wiped.” Tali shook her head, when she thought about how many systems were dependant on VIs her head began to hurt. Quarians had been in extremely high demand after the war, they were always able to make the most out of nothing, and there had been a lot of nothing.  
   
 “So, what is there to do around here? I mean besides the ship?” she asked.  
 “Talk to people,” Shepard sounded sullen.  
 “It’s most intriguing,” Mordin supplied. “Lots of information, not collated. Been gathering more resources.” He took in a deep breath. “How are krograns?”  
 Tali grinned. “Bakara, Eve to you I guess, named her firstborn Mordin.”  
 The salarian took a step back. “Really? Odd. Wouldn’t have expected…”  
 “Her second, with Wrex, was called Shepard.” She glanced over at her, seeing Shepard’s hands open and close. Kaidan stepped closer to her and she leaned back into him. He closed his arms around her. Perhaps things weren’t as bad with them as she first thought.  
 “It’s almost a holy name for them. She’ll have a lot to live up to. I think she was looking into being a shaman, so that she could help lead her clan,” Tali continued.  
   
 Were those tears in Shepard’s eyes? She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen the Commander cry and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it.  
 “Wrex told me before I died that the grass is green now.”  
 “Hm.” Mordin tapped his chin. “Could mean many things. Could be reference to life being better. Could refer to Tuchanka supporting more life. Could refer to change of fertility of the ground, unlikely though.”  
 “It’s all of them,” Shepard whispered, closing her eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “He means that I should get my ass back to life if I can and that everything’s going well, that there’s hope.”  
   
 Shepard always surprised Tali. She felt like Shepard always tried to save what she could, but never seemed happy with it, like it was never enough for her. Kaidan was murmuring in her ear, hopefully calming her down. Tali fidgeted, hoping that she hadn’t said something wrong. It wasn’t like she could just slap omni-gel on her words to fix them.  
   
 “What did Liara mean though?” Shepard opened her eyes again. “Let what slide?”  
 Tali felt her eyes open wider and glanced at Kaidan. She didn’t know what to make of the fact he hadn’t told her yet. Or maybe _he_ didn’t know either, but Garrus definitely did.  
 “The… destruction of the Normandy,” Tali let the words fall out reluctantly. “Liara… Liara’s only ever had work since you… left. I offered her well wishes and…” Tali felt the words stick in her throat.  
 “And?” Shepard’s voice was soft.  
 Tali closed her eyes, she didn’t want to see the look on their faces. “She said we were all the family she ever needed.”  
 “Liara,” Shepard sighed.  
 “Well, you know how to pick them, Commander.”  
 “Kaidan!” Shepard scolded. Tali opened her eyes again and almost jumped when Garrus took her in his arms. It felt so right, and wrong at the same time. They hadn’t ever been really showy with their affection around other people.  
 “It must have been hard,” he rumbled.  
 Tali shook her head. “The first month was hard. Hearing that you’re going to die in a few months.”  
 “What?” His mandibles fluttered in distress. She reached up to caress his face lightly.  
 “I got sick, very sick. I was old too, Garrus. It was my time.”  
   
 “I don’t believe it for a second,” he muttered. It was true there was something odd about her sickness, but she had been so tired too.  
 “Is it just me or…?” she glanced at Kaidan and Shepard.  
 “Yeah, there’s something wrong there. I haven’t been able to figure it out yet though. Shepard came to talk recently.” Garrus tapped his talons on his arm.  
 Tali frowned. She hated to see that Shepard was unhappy in some way. It was only a pity that it would take more effort to figure out than how to balance the Normandy’s mass effect core. It wasn’t something they could just slap omni-gel on, as much as she would like to.


	18. Don't fix what isn't broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some attempts at relationship mending happen.

 Between herself and Garrus, Tali knew that there was something wrong with Shepard and Kaidan. Something was wrong enough that she found herself in the cockpit with Joker having a staredown with the pilot.  
 “You and EDI know something,” she accused.  
 “Well, yeah. It doesn’t mean that we should tell you though,” Joker shrugged. “Just how it is.”  
 “Oh? So _how long_ has Shepard been miserable?”  
 “Commander Shepard isn’t miserable,” EDI corrected. “She is extremely uncomfortable and they’re both walking on eggshells.”  
 Tali let out a frustrated sound.  
 “What Tali means,” Garrus interpreted. “Is shouldn’t we help them get off those eggshells? I mean, they’re better together than not.”  
 “You have _no_ idea,” EDI sighed. “Shepard’s neurotransmitter levels were concerning until Dr. Chakwas started drinking with her regularly. Jeff’s own passing further stabilised her mental state. I believe she is torn between missing her crew and wanting them to have long lives. Thus—”  
 “Yeah, they get it EDI,” Joker interrupted.  
 “Not really, no,” Garrus folded his arms.  
 Joker snorted. “That doesn’t really scare me, what are you—crap I can’t use that anymore.”  
 “No, you can’t.”  
 Tali was quite certain that Garrus was smiling. Joker only needed a little more of a push.  
   
 “Don’t you _want_ to help them?” she wheedled. “I mean, the only _other_ way this will work is if Kaidan comes clean and I don’t think that—”  
 “Fine! We’ll help!” Joker threw up his hands. “What do you want me to do?”  
 Tali glanced at Garrus. “We think it’s best if you talk to Kaidan and we talk to Shepard.”  
 “It will be difficult to separate the two,” EDI noted.  
 “Surprise party,” Joker grunted. “Next contact day is coming up anyways. We can get everyone on the ship. Tell them you want to plan it.”  
 “That could work,” Tali mused. “Just… don’t let me drink too much this time, Garrus.”  
 He nodded and moved to hold her close before hesitating. Tali sighed and pulled his arm around her waist, where it settled comfortably.  
   
 “So what? That’s it? Talk to them? That’s the plan? Please tell me you have more than that,” Joker pleaded. “I mean it was bad enough watching them dance around on the SR1.”  
 “It was bad enough watching them _dance_ ,” Tali groaned. “I need to buy them some dancing lessons or something.”  
 “Only if you come with us.”  
 Everyone in the cockpit jolted to attention, except EDI. Tali wondered if she had purposefully omitted the fact that the two were heading towards them.  
   
 “Sorry, Shepard I don’t think they have lessons for bowed legs,” Tali joked.  
 Shepard raised an eyebrow. “Then I guess you won’t be buying those lessons any time soon.”  
 Tali let out a sigh. It seemed that Shepard wasn’t going to let them go with just that though.  
 “So why _are_ you all up here? Especially when the ship doesn’t need flying.”  
 “Calibrating,” EDI and Garrus chorused.  
 Tali thought sweat was trickling down her back at Shepard’s stare.  
 “Calibrating _what?_ ” She crossed her arms.  
 EDI glanced at her for a moment in what Tali swore was some sort of shame. “I have been losing functionality is some areas of the Normandy and Tali’s presence seems to have bolstered other areas.”  
 “Wait, what?” Tali stepped forward.  
 “Your energy presence has stabilised a great deal of the area in engineering,” EDI explained. “The area in general is sustained by those within it.”  
 “Oh, that’s pretty efficient,” she noted. She was quite familiar with the engineering area, and having parts of everyone maintaining their respective areas made sense.  
 “I thought you might like that,” Shepard chuckled. “But is this something we need to worry about EDI?”  
 EDI hesitated, causing Tali to worry a little. Perhaps she should ask the AI if she needed any help with maintenance, she had been slack in checking any of the systems. Hopefully she still remembered how most of them were supposed to work.  
 “I’ll help her check later, Shepard,” Tali offered.  
 “EDI,” Shepard pushed. Tali resisted the urge to fidget at Shepard’s hard gaze.  
 “I’ve been running diagnostics,” EDI admitted. “Tali’s help would be greatly appreciated.”  
   
 Shepard let out a heavy sigh. Tali gave into her urge and fidgeted slightly. “Keep me updated.”  
 Kaidan offered them a small smile before following her back to the elevator.  
 “Keelah,” Tali breathed out. “That was…”  
 “Frightening.” Garrus nodded.  
 “EDI, why didn’t you _tell_ us they were coming?” Joker complained.  
 “I thought a direct confrontation might be best,” EDI stared at them. “It would be easiest if friends told them about their concern, wouldn’t it?”  
 “Yeah,” Garrus sighed. “But a party might have been nice as well.”  
 “Only if you don’t have to plan it,” Tali complained. He may have foisted off a few too many political party things on her. She _hated_ logistics.  
 Garrus shrugged. “There’s not much fun in planning them.”  
 “Bad choice, man,” Joker stated.  
 Tali found herself just staring at him incredulously. “What? You wanted me to do all the work so that you could just have fun?”  
 His mandibles flared, so she _knew_ that he didn’t realise it wasn’t something she enjoyed. “You uh, said you missed people.”  
 “Keelah, I said I missed _certain_ people. You know? Like actual friends instead of politicians. Friends you can just say ‘bring the booze and your own food’ instead of worrying that you’ll poison everyone!”  
 “Well… I’m sorry?”  
 “It appears there are several relationship issues,” EDI noted. “Although, I do believe that Shepard and Kaidan’s will have the largest blow out.”  
 “What’re you basing that off of EDI?” Joker rolled his eyes. “Relationship mechanics?”  
 “I’m basing it off of prior records for Kaidan and Shepard’s latest reactions on the ship. She has started to isolate herself further and I believe that if they don’t talk, we will hear about it.”  
 “What, you think they’ll come to us?” Garrus asked.  
   
 EDI stared at him for a few moments. “I believe that the entire ship would be able to hear it.”  
 “Oh.”  
 The weight of that statement weighed on Tali. “We need to do something.”  
 “Yeah, after that I agree. Nix the party. Go tell Kaidan that I need to talk. It’ll give you time with Shepard. Let’s see if we can fix this before it explodes in our faces.”  
   
 “I think it’s already going to,” Tali groaned. Shepard seemed to be in a bad mood to begin with. She was pretty sure the only time she had ever seen her so stressed was when a mission was going south. It didn’t bode well for them, but talking to her would probably be the only chance they had to defuse the bomb before things got too bad.  
 “Let’s do it.” She grabbed Garrus’ arm and dragged him towards the elevators. “EDI?”  
 “Kaidan and Shepard are by the battery.”  
 “Got it,” Tali nodded.  
 “Break a leg,” Joker called after them. “Just not mine.”  
   
 Her translator popped up that it was a human expression to wish luck, but it seemed like an odd phrase to deem lucky, especially for Joker.  
 “So uh, how are we going to do this?” Garrus was all aflutter, at least that’s how she liked to think of it.  
 “Plain and simple, we aren’t Liara.”  
 “True enough,” Garrus laughed. “She was better with words.”  
 Tali punched in the crew deck for the elevator and took in a deep breath.  
 “Scared?” Garrus probably meant to tease her, but she could tell he was just as frightened as she was.  
 “It’s Shepard. I mean the woman took down _all_ the Reapers. Why wouldn’t I be scared?”  
 “I still wonder what happened on the Citadel sometimes.”  
 “Who doesn’t?” Tali sighed. Shepard hadn’t told anyone else either, although Ashley seemed a little uncomfortable when it was brought up, so she likely had a better idea.  
   
 Where _had_ Ashley gone? Tali wasn’t sure if she had seen her around the Normandy much, but she also wasn’t sure where the marine liked to hang out. Perhaps she should go talk to her after helping EDI figure out the Normandy’s issues.  
 “Kaidan!” She waved as the door opened.  
 “You two are practically inseparable now aren’t you?” Kaidan laughed.  
 Garrus shrugged and she could almost swear that her husband was blushing. “Well, it’s… weird.”  
 “We didn’t have _us_ time with everything going on. So usually it was just waking up and going to sleep.” Tali’s voice softened near the end. That was what had been most difficult for her in the end. She punched him in the arm. “Next time he’ll take backup when I say he needs someone to watch his six.”  
 “No backup is as good as Shepard,” Garrus complained.  
 Shepard smiled slightly. “Was there something for Kaidan?”  
 Tali flushed, she had almost forgotten the entire reason that they had come down. “Joker wants to see you.”  
 “Really?” Kaidan sighed. “We were just there.”  
 Tali shrugged and he took a while to go up for the elevator. When the door closed it was almost like Shepard collapsed in herself. Tali had to stop herself from reaching out to catch her. Shepard wasn’t _actually_ falling, but it felt strange to see her like this.  
   
 “Is everything okay, Shepard?” Garrus asked, his own arm was outstretched.  
 “I don’t know,” Shepard breathed.  
 Tali hugged her. Shepard hated not knowing things, she always asked and if she didn’t know why things were much worse than they had thought.  
 “We’re worried,” she admitted.  
 “Why?” Shepard sounded genuinely puzzled.  
 Tali pulled back to look into her eyes. Shepard looked tired, but they didn’t need to sleep here. Something else must have been pulling at her.  
 “Is it Kaidan?” Garrus asked. Shepard almost jolted out of her arms.  
 “It is, isn’t it?” Tali asked.  
 Shepard ran a hand through her hair. “He… I need to hear it from him. I know _something’s_ wrong. The crew look at him wrong, it _feels_ wrong but he won’t tell me anything!” She pounded the wall.  
   
 Tali glanced at Garrus. She wanted to tell her, she _should_ know. She might even be able to help Kaidan with his own issues. Except that she didn’t know anything beyond what Joker relayed to them.  
 “We… don’t have details about it either but…” Tali sighed. She deserved to know at least the minimum. “There… was a mission.”  
 “Tali,” Garrus interrupted.  
 Tali glared. “I don’t know everything but she should know why the crew looks at Kaidan like he might break!”  
 Garrus backed down after that and Shepard clenched her arm.  
 “Something did happen,” she whispered.  
 Tali nodded. “The medical officer declared him medically unfit for duty partway through a mission, it was after Chakwas died.” She had to help guide Shepard down against a bar to support herself.  
   
 Shepard was shaking, Tali glanced at Garrus. Perhaps that had been a bad idea after all.  
 “We saw him after,” Garrus added. “Joker said that your death had hit him particularly hard but he had the proper medications to help him through it.”  
 “He seemed… somewhat normal when we saw him. I mean.” She wrung her hands. “Your death hit us all hard again, but he was getting by with Joker. We did what we could from the Citadel, but we were mostly running liaison for his missions.”  
 “It’s okay Tali.” Shepard gave a weak smile. “I just… there’s so much of that time that I missed. I get bits and pieces of it from everyone but I feel like there’s a big thing hanging over everyone too.”  
   
 Tali did her best not to flinch.  
 “I don’t fault you for not telling me,” Shepard reassured her. “I know that I need to hear it from Kaidan even if I heard it from one of you first.”  
 “Oh.” Tali cringed inwardly, she could surely think of more words than that!  
 “You’ve given me a hint though, it… I think it helps.” Shepard sighed. “Maybe we should go visit his dad on the next contact day. I think the waiting is starting to hit all of us hard.”  
 “We could have a party on the Normandy,” Garrus suggested. “Invite everyone on the next contact day for the one after.”  
   
 Tali expected Shepard to turn it down flat, she wasn’t much of a people person as she recalled. Something about the space must have started to change her though, because Shepard actually _smiled_ at the thought.  
 “I’m just imagining some of the old crew meeting the new. Traynor would have a blast with everyone.” Shepard sighed. “You know what? Let’s do it. EDI?”  
 “Yes Commander?”  
 “Can you log in everyone’s files for a party on the Normandy two communication days from now? People can invite all their friends and family.”  
 There was a flicker of silence before everyone’s omni-tool pinged.  
   
 “If you two will excuse me, I need to talk to Kaidan now.” Shepard tipped her head slightly before walking past them. Tali glanced at Garrus, she wasn’t entirely sure if they had actually helped or not. If they hadn’t, perhaps they had broken things even further.


	19. A Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad with the puns with some of the chapters. I'm not sorry. This chapter and the next one are two of my favourites, so I hope you enjoy!!!

Kaidan wasn’t certain how much longer he would be able to avoid Shepard. It certainly helped that she was running around trying to figure out how the party would work. He did the same thing, just running in the opposite direction. It was a little strange to him that one talk with Joker could change things from wanting to be beside Shepard to avoiding her.  
   
 He didn’t intend to; it just happened. He rubbed at his temples, he made Joker one promise and he found himself avoiding it now. He watched Shepard run around the deck again to talk to people, ensuring that all the invitations had gone out and if they would be staying for the party. There was a type of terse excitement aboard the Normandy now.  
   
 Perhaps part of the reason that things were so tense was because their remaining crew members would have a longer life – especially given their typical lifespans. He wouldn’t be too surprised however if Liara found herself here before their third year was up, only cemented by Tali’s information. Her promise worried him a little, even while it offered him some degree of relief.  
   
 Most of his time alive after the Reaper war had been spent trying to hunt down the people trying to tear Shepard down. He had to admit they were thorough though, underestimating them had resulted in all their deaths. He wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about that. There was certainly shame, frustration, but it seemed to have moved so many other things forward.  
   
 “So, Kaidan.”  
 Kaidan glanced sideways at Garrus. He was still fairly certain that he and Tali were in something with Joker and EDI. The timing had been a little too perfect when they asked him to talk to Joker.  
 “It’s odd for you to just watch,” Garrus observed.  
 Kaidan held back a smile. “It’s what I’ve been doing most often lately.” There was something peaceful about watching Shepard running around when Reapers weren’t on their tail.  
 He enjoyed the sigh of frustration from the turian. It was a little petty of him, but he didn’t really need other people telling him exactly what he was doing wrong with his love life. Things were never simple with him and Shepard.  
   
 The issue was always what managed to come out of his mouth. Even when they first met there was just something where his mouth would move before his brain could stop it. There had always been small amounts of relief when she’d pass over him for the ground teams. Ashley and Liara were her main team, the best of the three worlds. At least until Virmire.  
   
 He frowned at the thought and turned to Garrus.  
 “Was there something?” Anything, he didn’t want to think about Virmire today.  
 Garrus stared at him for a while, making him wish that he hadn’t cut him off early on.  
 “It’s killing you slowly. I know how it feels.”  
 Kaidan laughed.  
 “Dr. Heart. The one that got away.” Garrus continued.  
 His laughter stopped, dead in his throat and he met Garrus’ eyes.  
 “I let my career get the best of me, just like you. I just didn’t have a Shepard until later.” Garrus crossed his arms. “She loves you as you are, you know.”  
 “I know,” Kaidan sighed. He didn’t know why, but it was probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to him. “I’m trying to remember who that is.”  
 “You’ll find him again, hard not to when you have someone like that waiting for you.” Garrus tipped his head towards Shepard. “You don’t have to tell her everything, but someone like Shepard can feel tension across a room. You’re going to have to address it sooner or later. I think the entire ship would rather not hear it.”  
 “Maybe they do,” Kaidan sighed. “That’s part of it after all.”  
 “Kaidan,” Garrus scolded. “They don’t know what you’ll do, that’s _all_ this is. Hell you can even do something at the party, I don’t know.”  
   
 Garrus looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know, I completely forgot what my question was now.”  
 Kaidan snorted, at least until Shepard crooked her finger at him. He let out a sigh. “Duty calls.”  
 “Good luck.” Garrus waved.  
 Kaidan really hoped that he didn’t need it as he let Shepard draw him into a kiss. They grabbed a few moments here and there, but it was still mostly just reassuring to feel her around him, to know that she was within reach.  
 “Hey.” Her hands traced the nape of his neck for a moment. Something about it felt odd, but he couldn’t place it until she retraced it as well.  
   
 Their eyes met at the same time, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before.  
 “Your amp is missing,” she whispered. “Can…?”  
 He didn’t know. He stared at one of the little objects and executed the familiar mnemonic. It glowed for a moment but it stayed firmly on the table.  
 “So still a biotic.”  
 “Just not an L2,” Kaidan murmured.  
 Shepard had a little smile on. “No migraines at least then.” There was a note of hesitance in her voice, and he hated that he put it there.  
   
 “I wondered how all of this managed to not give me one.” He closed his eyes and touched their foreheads together. “Shepard… I need to talk to you.”  
 “Upstairs?” She was giving him the option of privacy, one he wasn’t sure he deserved or should take up on. At the same time he was scared, telling her even a part of the whole truth.  
   
 “We’ll have until people come.” She squeezed his hand, pulling him back to the present.  
 “Yeah, okay. Upstairs.” He entwined their fingers as they walked together. The warmth in his hand was perfect; _she_ was perfect.  
 “You know, I never really understood what you went through, hell even now I probably don’t,” she admitted as the elevator climbed.  
 “What?” He wasn’t sure about the sudden turn in the conversation, or rather the plotted out speech he had in his head.  
 “How my death affected you. I didn’t realise until I woke up here. Even then, I had _days_ to your years and every time those lights went off I hoped it was you. I hated myself for it. I still do.”  
 “Shepard.” His heart went into his throat and he cupped her cheek.  
   
 He knew he would hate EDI’s chime the moment he heard it. That his thought-out words would go out the window in the interest of the party beginning. He closed his eyes as her voice filtered through the elevator.  
 “Commander, the families have begun to arrive. Do you want to divert?”  
 Shepard let out an angry huff. It was somewhat good to know that she echoed his sentiments in that regard.  
 “We should,” he whispered, “Raincheck?”  
 She stared at him, searching for something in him but he wasn’t sure. “Raincheck. EDI take us down.”  
 “Understood.”  
   
 Kaidan tried not to be too disappointed, but he did _try_ , which was all he promised Joker. EDI had been there as well so it _really_ wasn’t his fault. He frowned slightly, wondering why he was trying to pin the blame on someone else when the entire issue was _his_ fault to begin with.  
 “Hey don’t think too hard on it okay?”  
 He took in a breath, he was worrying enough that _Shepard_ was worrying about him.  
 “I’ll be okay, just… I was looking forward to that.”  
 “Well you can just take me dancing for now then. After you introduce me to your mom.”  
 Kaidan smiled slightly, he wasn’t sure how to take feeling happy both his parents were here really.  
 “I feel that too.”  
 “What?” It felt like he was saying that a lot lately.  
 “Happy and guilty for people being here. It might be why I’ve been so… off lately.” She smiled slightly. “Also why I was angry at you, in part.”  
 “Would you ever forgive me?” he dipped his head, hesitating for a moment above her lips. They were probably going to stop soon.  
   
 She made the decision for him and crushed their lips together. He felt an odd thrill in him that was both familiar and different. He let go of her hand and drew her closer, drawing her heat into him.  
 “Well, I guess you were right.”  
 Kaidan tore himself from Shepard at that voice.  
 “Mom.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s uh—”  
 His mom completely ignored his blabber and just stuck out a hand for Shepard. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, a little happy that he wasn’t the only one feeling a little like they got caught with their pants down. If it had been much longer that might have happened actually.  
 “I’m glad to meet you, Commander Shepard. It was good to have my son back for a while.”  
 “I’m… just sorry I took him away again,” Shepard replied quietly.  
 Kaidan closed his eyes, willing himself to disappear. He didn’t want to hear this, he didn’t think he wanted this to ever happen, or if he did he must have been insane.  
 “Come here Kaidan,” his dad suggested.  
 Kaidan darted out of the elevator gratefully. Now that he looked he could see Ashley giving him a wicked grin while she talked to her parents.  
 “No one wants to be there for that,” his dad muttered.  
 “You had to go through that too?”  
 His dad chuckled. “Worse, your mother had her brothers there too. What about Shepard’s family? She said she didn’t have any but…”  
 “She grew up on the streets, had a gang. The Reds I think… we ran into one of them on a mission once. She didn’t think very well of them after that.”  
 His dad made an understanding noise. “I see. How about you introduce me to some of these people.”  
 “ _I_ don’t know most of these people, Dad,” Kaidan laughed. He glanced over to see Shepard being dragged around by his mom. Their eyes met for a moment and he mouthed a ‘sorry’. She smiled sheepishly and turned back to where his mom was leading her.  
   
 He felt his heart warm a little more.  
 “You have it _bad_ , LT.” Ashley stood at attention with her parents behind her.  
 Kaidan raised an eyebrow but couldn’t keep a smile off his face.  
 “Do they permit fraternization now?” Mr. Williams looked extremely disapproving. Kaidan found himself automatically at attention.  
 “What does it matter now?” his dad shrugged.  
 Ashley snorted. “Dad, you didn’t see them on the first Normandy. There was a _betting pool_ on when they would get together.”  
 “Yeah, I made a lot on that after almost catching the two of them snogging.” Joker butted in.  
   
 Kaidan closed his eyes, maybe he would have been better off with his mom with all the embarrassing stories.  
 “Oh? Do tell?” Ashley grinned wickedly.  
 “You’re a horrible woman,” Kaidan groaned.  
 Ashley shrugged. “Hey I’m getting tired of just watching you all dance around each other again.”  
 “We aren’t!”  
 “You’re doing _something_ ,” Joker accused.  
 He couldn’t deny that if he wanted to.  
 “Okay,” he admitted. “There’s some… issues that we have to discuss but—”  
 “I’m afraid that I interrupted their attempt, Jeff. You really shouldn’t fault them for that,” EDI interrupted.  
 His dad and Ashley’s exchanged clueless looks.  
 “Yes, this is normal.” Kaidan laughed. “I can’t believe that I missed this.”  
   
 His dad smiled slightly. “It makes sense too when you said that ‘no one else would be the same’.” He waved around at the crowd. “It’s hard to believe that this… variety of people can all get along.”  
 “For now,” Ashley muttered. Kaidan silently agreed. While the crew themselves got along, the families were still very separate. He glanced towards Shepard, who seemed intent on dragging Mordin over somewhere.  
 “At least Wrex isn’t here,” he commented. Joker and Ashley laughed.  
 “Oh man, there would be a _huge_ ring of space around him until Shepard headbutted him or something,” Joker chuckled.  
 “Deadliest krogran ever, dad,” Ashley explained. “It was weird as hell working with him.”  
 “You didn’t meet Grunt.” Kaidan shuddered. “I wonder where Shepard finds some of us.”  
 “Cerberus led me to that one, lover boy.” Shepard draped her arm across his shoulder. “ _You_.” She glanced around them all. “Should know better. Get mingling, that’s an order.”  
 “Aye ma’am,” they chorused.  
 Kaidan eyed Joker as Shepard ran off to talk to a drell.  
 “Flip you for who has to talk to the salarians,” he offered.  
 “I’ll go for that, I need to pick Mordin’s brain about something anyways.” Ashley waved and dragged her parents off.  
 “Hell I’ll flip you for who goes to talk to Garrus’ folks,” Joker offered. Kaidan eyed them. The other option he really had was talking to Tali’s family, although he supposed they could talk about tech or something.  
 “You can go ahead, I think I’ll pick some quarian brains.”  
 Joker shrugged. “Suit yourself.”  
   
 Kaidan smiled and glanced over at the crowd to locate his mother, she seemed to be hunting after Shepard. She had a little following of aliens around her that she dragged in.  
 “Typical,” his dad sighed. “But that’s why I was lost to her at the beginning.”  
 Kaidan stared at Shepard, in the middle of everything. “I think that’s what got me too,” he whispered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Garrus did actually have a question in this chapter. I actually forgot it because I got so engrossed in their conversation, so he forgot it as well as a result.


	20. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holding parties is tiring work.   
> This is where the attempted suicide tag comes a bit into play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm sorry that it's been almost a month. There's a bunch of excuses but most of them are really bullshit. This is one of my favourite chapters though so I hope you all enjoy it!

 Shepard was almost certain that if this was the real world, she would be absolutely exhausted. As it was, she was enjoying lying in Kaidan’s arms, staring across the lounge at the rest of her.   
“I feel like I should be tired,” Joker complained. “Why do I feel like I should be tired?”   
“Because after that a normal person would be,” Kaidan groaned. “God I _hate_ parties.”   
“Shouldn’t have helped save the world then.” Garrus laughed.   
Tali groaned. “He only says that because he’s never had to _plan_ one.”   
   
Shepard snorted. There was one thing that she should be happy about dying then. She _definitely_ didn’t like the ‘we survived everything’ parties. Although… She tipped her head up to look at Kaidan’s face. There would have been some things that wouldn’t be too bad about them.   
“What are you thinking about?” Kaidan smiled.   
Shepard shrugged. She liked how his chest reverberated when he spoke. “Happy that I was dead… for once.”   
“But we missed you _dancing_ ,” Tali complained. “It was going to be the highlight of the event!”   
The room burst into laughter, which Shepard took part in.   
“Really though?” Kaidan rubbed her arm.   
Shepard shrugged slightly. “The after party that might have occurred. Like you said, there was probably one hell of a reunion party.”   
“Yeah… but it wasn’t the same without you. Actually, we were _late_ for the Earth reunion party. Got put straight to clean up duty.”   
“Glad I wasn’t there.” Shepard felt an odd smile twist onto her face. “I would have gone crazy with you guys and everyone trying to hold me up as some saviour.”   
“They did it anyways,” Garrus stated. Shepard was starting to wish she had a beer for this entire conversation.   
“I don’t want to hear it!” She covered her ears in a very childish move. It didn’t stop her from hearing the chorus of laughter in the room.   
   
“By the way,” she brought up. “Where’s James?”   
Kaidan shook his head. “He was an N5 last we talked, off for the N6 training. It was a long time ago. Garrus?”   
Garrus leaned forward slightly. “Liara has more intel on it, but I got the impression that James was conducting a parallel investigation to yours after he finished his training.”   
“So he—”   
“N7, yes,” Tali finished. “We had a few beers when he came by the Citadel.”   
“Good to know that the Alliance kept you all close at hand.” Shepard sighed. “Or at least that you all managed to keep yourselves in touch.”   
   
The room got really quiet and she wondered what she had possibly said.   
“Shepard… we kept in touch because it was…” She could hear the catch in Kaidan’s throat.   
“It was the only way we could… get past losing you again,” Joker finished. “After we all got trashed in your memory.”   
“There was enough liquor around?” She tried to keep her voice light but she didn’t think it carried over.   
“We dipped into Chakwas’ storage. Turned out she had been stocking it just in case. We broke open the bottles after we got the Normandy running again,” Garrus answered. “She even had a few dextro brands around.”   
“That wasn’t fun,” Kaidan grumbled.   
Joker scowled at him. “You weren’t any picnic either Alenko.”   
Tali sighed at them all. “We… had some hope after we made it out, Shepard. Once we got back and they had this… grand procession for you though.”   
Shepard shuddered thinking about it.   
“Yeah, Alenko here couldn’t leave it alone either. Trust me, everyone knew what you two were doing after that display.”   
“What about you, Jeff?” EDI asked.   
“Uh, what?”   
“Your reactions,” EDI pressed. “We have discussed what happened in regards to Shepard, but…”   
“Joker wouldn’t leave the cockpit when we crashed.” Kaidan shifted slightly. “We tried to get him to move, to eat or _anything_ really. It took Chakwas a while to manage him to even take his meds again.”   
   
Shepard grasped Kaidan’s arm. Her heart clenched slightly. She could laugh off her own death, having died once before made it easy, almost a joke to her. She knew how everyone would react already, but EDI didn’t have that comfort.   
“That would have resulted in—”   
“Yeah, I know!” Joker threw up his hands. “I couldn’t believe you were gone okay! I melted. I think Kaidan wanted to slap me more than once.”   
“I did once,” Kaidan admitted. “Lightly though.”   
“Really?” Joker stared at him.   
“Yeah, Chakwas injected you with stimulants after that so that we could actually talk.”   
“What did you say?” EDI leaned forward. Shepard found herself interested as well. How would Kaidan have brought Joker out of a fugue that he had been in once?   
   
Kaidan shifted again and she moved so that he could rearrange himself more freely. He pulled her back before she got too far though. She settled back down on top of him and took a few moments to get comfortable.   
“Keelah, how long are you two going to be like that?” Tali shifted into Garrus’ arms.   
Shepard raised an eyebrow. “Really Tali?”   
“Well, you were together longer than us!”   
Kaidan laughed. “Not really.”   
“He’s got a point,” Garrus snorted. “We had more time together alive than they did.”   
“But we can’t sleep here!” Tali complained.   
Garrus shrugged. “New boundaries.”   
“We aren’t going to be as bad as them though are we?” Tali waved at Shepard and Kaidan.   
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Shepard quipped.   
   
“Really? I bet you two haven’t even had _alone_ time since Kaidan came here,” Joker snorted.   
EDI tilted her head to the side slightly. “There have been many times that the two have been isolated from the rest of the crew.”   
Joker waved his hand at her. “No, I mean _alone_ time.” He waggled his eyebrows.   
Shepard and Kaidan groaned.   
“We are _not_ going there,” Shepard stated. “Not ever.”   
“Ever?” Kaidan raised an eyebrow.   
She nudged him gently. “Later,” she amended. She could almost see Kaidan’s smug grin behind her now.   
“I uh, didn’t need to know that.” Joker covered his eyes. “Wow, did not need to know that.”   
“You asked,” Kaidan pointed out.   
   
“I think… I’m going to go make sure the engines didn’t overheat.” Tali scampered out of the room quickly, Garrus following her quickly with something about ‘calibrations’. In fact, the room emptied almost immediately.   
“Really?” Shepard looked up at Kaidan. “You really had to freak them out that much?”   
Kaidan just smiled slyly and dipped his head down to graze his lips over hers. A small thrill ran through her body and she grasped his shirt in her hands as he backed away.   
   
Something in his eyes stopped her from just turning around and sitting on him for a proper kiss.   
“Kaidan?”   
“I…” He sighed. “Raincheck right? Can we talk for a minute?”   
“Of course.” She shifted so she was sitting beside him instead. He held her hands, staring down at them. She felt her heart clench at the fact that he couldn’t even meet her eyes.   
“So, you know the tension you’ve been feeling on the ship? The one that seems to just… gravitate around me?”   
“It’s a little hard to miss.” She squeezed his hands. “Tali said that you had been declared medically unfit for duty at a point.”   
Kaidan let out a hoarse laugh. “That’s… putting it lightly. Wow, that’s all she knew?”   
“That’s all she would tell me,” Shepard corrected. “The rest we agreed was best to hear from you, but she thought it would be best if I had some idea of what was going on.”   
“Right, well I seem to have gotten the opposite talk of that from Joker and EDI. EDI was particularly… mean about it really.”   
“Kaidan.” Her eyes hardened slightly. He was starting to talk in circles, changing subjects. Part of her wanted to let him, but he also wanted to tell her or he wouldn’t have asked to talk to her in the first place.   
   
“I’m sorry. It’s… hard admitting when you messed up.”   
Shepard let go of his hand to tip his head up, trying to see something in his eyes. It took a few moments before his gaze dragged up to hers. He seemed almost empty, and for a moment she wasn’t sure that she really wanted to know. But what mattered was Kaidan, and if it was something he needed to tell her, she would do her best to listen. Just like old times.   
“I OD’ed on my depression meds.”   
Shepard stared at him. She knew for a fact that overdosing on depression meds was _nigh impossible_. They made them hard to overdose _on purpose_.   
“Well, to be precise, I mixed the wrong combination of stimulants and depression meds,” Kaidan corrected. “I… it was a bad day and I met so many people that—” He stopped, his throat bobbing and she could see the tears beginning to form in his eyes.   
   
She closed her eyes and touched her head to his, letting them connect again. Somehow this felt more intimate sometimes than when they were in her cabin. She wouldn’t trade this feeling for the world.   
“Who found you?” She was surprised to hear the hoarseness in her own voice.   
“Joker.” Kaidan ran his thumb over the hand he still held. “If Chakwas was still there, I probably would have gotten off with just a warning and a very watchful eye.”   
“She might tell you off now though.” Shepard tried to lighten the mood.   
Kaidan pulled away and she felt her heart sink.   
   
“Shepard, I—”   
She placed a finger to his lips. “You made a mistake. Your CMO made a mistake too. Something like that _shouldn’t_ have filtered down through the crew.” She swallowed. “I can’t fault you for a mistake I might have made as well if our roles were reversed. You… you did the galaxy a lot of good, Kaidan. You did it in my place.”   
   
Their kiss was watery; at some point she had started crying as well.   
“I’m going with you,” Kaidan promised. “No matter what.”   
“Kaidan, do you really want to remember—”   
“I don’t want to forget you, to forget this.” He trailed a hand down the side of her face. “Even if we can’t remember our time here, I don’t want to ever forget that I love you.”   
Shepard swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn’t want to turn into a blubbering mess again, but it was starting to look like she was heading that way.   
   
Kaidan’s thumb gently wiped away her tears and he began to kiss them away slowly. She couldn’t stop a laugh from bubbling out of her chest.   
“Here you are, hurting and you’re comforting _me_ ,” she blubbered. He paused, his honey brown eyes meeting hers, warming her through.   
“Comforting you, helps comfort me,” he whispered. She couldn’t stop the smile from bubbling over on her face through her tears.   
“Your… lines,” she hiccupped. “Are still terrible.”   
“And you’re still a noisy crier.” A smile came across his face through the tears and she felt like the sun was shining over her. Kaidan’s death had been the dawn of the day, but now she truly felt like she was basking in his light.   
   
“Wish I could change that,” she hiccupped again.   
Kaidan laughed and drew her back onto his lap, facing him this time. “You’re actually talking, so that’s something.”   
Shepard laughed weakly. “Well, if you, you wan-want.” Her face screwed up in frustration. Kaidan seemed to understand what she was getting at though.   
   
His lips traced lightly over her own once more, keeping her just far enough away that she couldn’t draw him in deeper. One of his hands trailed along her side, indicating his intent. She let out a frustrated sound as he drew away and held her on his lap at a distance. He had his cocky look on or at least an attempt at it through tears.   
“So, tell me Shepard, does this count as ‘later’?” He relaxed his hold slightly, giving her the chance to back out like he always did.   
“It definitely does.” She leaned forward and drew him into the kiss she wanted since the elevator. She might have to thank Joker later.


	21. It's All in the Size of the Gun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fully admit... I'm posting this as both a late N7, but also to cheer both myself and hopefully other people up as well.
> 
> I hope that some levity will help.

 Something had changed, but she wasn’t sure what. Shepard glanced at the crew, far more of them were back aboard the SR2. There were even a fair number of the SR1 that came up to her saying that they were transferring over, at least for now. Pressly had given his condolences early on and departed after Kaidan and the SR2 arrived. A few of the servicemen and women followed as well, making Shepard wonder how many of them had stayed just for her, for them.  
   
 “What’s wrong?” Kaidan slipped his hands around her waist. She tilted her head back slightly to look him in the eyes. Kaidan was more relaxed, there was still something bothering him, but it seemed like their talk had taken a large amount of his stress, and thus the crew’s stress, away.  
 “Just thinking,” she murmured, looking back to the galaxy map. It was mostly blank now, she supposed there wasn’t enough energy between all of them to maintain it.  
   
 Tali and EDI had managed to stabilise the majority of the Normandy with the influx of crew. She had more than an inkling that they had cajoled a few of them into coming back. She understood why there was still tension. There were three crews mingling, and one crew didn’t get along well to begin with. She should probably count her lucky stars that Jack wasn’t here yet so there weren’t any biotic pissing contests. Then again… She leaned back against Kaidan. The amp was gone, so the others were probably not as powerful either. She wouldn’t put it past them to get together and have some biotic convention and share notes. The biotics she knew all had varying specialties and there had been… comparisons in the past. She rubbed her head as she remembered some of Miranda and Jack’s more… flagrant displays.  
   
 “Thinking so hard it hurts, Commander?” Kaidan touched her shoulder lightly.  
 Shepard snorted. “No, remembering how hellish it was on the SR2 at first.” She turned around to face him, her hand tapping along the railing. “Everyone hated each other for the most part. _I_ hated most of the people I started out with.” She sighed and let her eyes drift back over the empty galaxy map.  
 “You didn’t,” Kaidan corrected.  
 She couldn’t stop her bitter laugh. “Cerberus _let my unit die_ on Akuze and suddenly I’m their plaything?” She squeezed the bar behind her. “I have an ex-Alliance marine telling me he prefers Cerberus and a goddamned Cerberus cheerleader to start with.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth. “They changed, we all did but Kaidan, I hated everyone on this ship for a while. Except for Joker and Chakwas,” she amended. “That and Miranda’s dead because I still didn’t trust her to a degree.” Shepard sighed and pushed herself off the railing to lean against Kaidan for a moment.  
 “I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive myself for that.”  
 “What do you mean?” Kaidan let his arms drape around her, enfolding her in warmth.  
 “She needed Alliance resources to help track down her sister, I didn’t give them to her. What if that made all the difference?”  
 “Shepard,” Kaidan scolded. “The Alliance was hard pressed by the Reapers then. You couldn’t have possibly known—” He stopped as all the lights dimmed for a moment.  
   
 EDI’s voice filtered through all the comm systems. “New arrivals in the cargo bay and war room.”  
 “Is that _normal?_ ” Kaidan glanced up.  
 EDI answered his question. “Systems take a while to resume normal functionality after an arrival. I thought it best to give Kalahira space to do their work even if it results in temporary minor failures at the time.”  
 Shepard shuddered. She didn’t realise that the entire reason they had notice was because EDI was rerouting her systems. Perhaps she did need all the help from Garrus with the recalibrations on the SR1. She might let him know that later, that she wasn’t just fiddling with his systems to give him something to do.  
   
 “Where first?” Kaidan asked. The decision was made for her easily when she heard a familiar roar from the war room.  
 “ _Shepard!_ ”  
 She smiled wryly. “Wrex.”  
 “Seriously? The krogan’s here already?” Joker called. “What happened there? Tuchanka was supposed to be safe now right?”  
 “Was Tuchanka _ever_ safe?” Kaidan snorted.  
 “Only if you’re a thresher maw.” Shepard returned the smile and stepped down from the map. “Are you coming?”  
 Kaidan shook his head. “I think you’ll survive Wrex. I’ll go see how the cargo bay is.”  
 “Let me know if I need to do anything.”  
 “I’d rather do it first and give you more time to yourself.” A mischievous grin crossed his face for a moment before disappearing.  
 Shepard quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? I think I have _more_ than enough time.” A chill went down her spine as she said it. She shook off the feeling but couldn’t quite shake the dread settling into her mind.  
   
 She saw Kaidan’s mouth twitch slightly, but the elevator door closed in front of him as he opened his mouth. She laughed and felt some of the dread slip off her shoulders and she stepped through towards the war room. She was glad that the security measures were no longer here, it would be a lot of wasted time for something unrequired here.  
   
 She placed her hands on her hips when the war room came into view. Wrex was pacing the room, although his pacing looked far more like hunting for something. Shepard frowned as she watched him for one more cycle until he noticed her.  
 “What’s with this Shepard!” he growled, thrusting an arm behind him. “Where’s Tuchanka! Why am I here?”  
 She forced her face to neutral, even as she felt a smile twitching. “Why don’t you tell me, Wrex?” She shifted slightly to be more comfortable standing. “Supposedly you only go where you really want to, is there something you want to tell me?”  
   
 It was almost cute to see Wrex so speechless, turning his head one way and then another with his mouth opening and closing with ‘harrumph’s here and there.  
 “There’re more than a few people here that will be happy to see you I’m sure,” she let her smile cross her face. That seemed to catch his attention as one eyes fixed on her.  
 “If one of those is a certain quarian she better have given my message,” Wrex growled.  
 Shepard nodded slightly, her smile fading a little. “The grass is green,” she murmured and looked off to the side. She remembered something else that Tali told her too and she felt her face twist a little.  
 “You also named one of your kids after me.”  
 Wrex snorted and pounded his chest. “She’s a true leader! A warrior and a diplomat that would have you shaking in your armor! She does you honour, as we knew she would. I would never dishonour your name, Shepard.”  
 Shepard stared at him. She didn’t really expect that little speech, she just wasn’t sure how she felt that her name was seen as one of those ones that people would be giving their kids with stories.  
 “I…” she sighed and slumped slightly. There wasn’t really that much for her to ask about that either, at least not in a way that she could think of.  
 Wrex laughed and clapped her on the arm. “I’ll tell you all about her later.” He snorted and rolled his shoulders forward. “Now, where’s that piece of shit N7.”  
 Shepard raised an eyebrow. “James? _James_ is the one in the cargo bay?”  
 Wrex’s lip curled slightly. “That pyjak couldn’t tell a boulder from a bomb.”  
 “I feel like there’s a story there.”  
 Wrex snorted and moved past her towards the elevator.  
 “Let’s go talk and see,” he growled.  
   
 Shepard felt like she should stop this, but at the same time she couldn’t quite deny her curiosity and followed Wrex.  
 “The best thing,” Wrex laughed. “Is that I can’t kill him already!”  
 That made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She fell behind Wrex to shoot Kaidan a fast message on her omni-tool. If both of them were ready for something, they might be able to limit the damage.  
 “You better not have warned him,” Wrex growled.  
 Shepard raised an eyebrow. “No, I warned Kaidan in case we need to stop EDI from getting hurt.”  
 Wrex stopped in the elevator and turned to look at her before letting out a laugh.  
   
 “Right, tell me did the entire Reaper thing ever fix—” Wrex began.  
 “Yes,” she interrupted. She tried to stop the slow flush climbing up her face. She forgot that Wrex had been on board while Kaidan was hospitalised. “We made up. He was in—”  
 “Huerta,” Wrex snorted. “I keep an eye on you and yours Shepard.” He fixed her with a beady eye while punching for the elevator. EDI piped in an additional request to limit damage to the Normandy as the doors open.  
 “I’ll keep my gun away if he does,” Wrex snorted.  
 “Given how things went, I’d be surprised,” Shepard rolled her eyes and stepped next to him.  
 “I’m just going to hit him a little. It was an easy request and he almost had Tuchanka exploding. Not the point though. Why didn’t you come to me earlier when you were having your Cerberus trouble. I could have told you everything.”  
   
 Shepard sighed. That was a topic she didn’t like to think about too much. The entire Collectors thing had been such bullshit and she regretted letting him have the base. At the time she thought it would have been best for at least _someone_ to be prepared. Instead she had given him a leg up on fucking them all over.  
 “You were doing your own thing Wrex. I didn’t want to interfere.”  
 Wrex laughed. “You’re Shepard, you like to stick your nose everywhere.”  
 “Would you believe I didn’t have much choice?” Her lips twisted slightly. They had been running on a schedule, after Horizon she wanted to shove up that schedule up Miranda’s ass so that she would get off her back.  
 “Yet you came by later for people, not smart if you’re running out of time.”  
 Shepard’s hands balled and she turned to face Wrex. He straightened a little before forcibly relaxing as the elevator made its descent.  
 “I don’t like people dying for nothing.” She was surprised at the calmness in her voice. The last time she had said those words she was screaming them across a ship. “It was best if we all had a reason to come back.”  
   
 “Was he yours?” Wrex asked.  
 Shepard closed her eyes and relaxed. “I don’t know.” She didn’t. His letter was barely a balm to his words, she wasn’t sure if she fought that hard because she was still mad at him, or she was holding out for a chance. “Maybe. Just enough that I wanted to come back and yell at him or… I don’t know.”  
 Wrex snorted and shook his head. “I don’t see why you humans have to make everything so complicated.”  
 “Not my fault,” Shepard grumbled as the elevator pinged. She drew up her omni-tool just in case and she could see Kaidan’s barrier as the doors opened.  
 “You pyjak!” Wrex roared as he stalked towards James.  
   
 To her surprise, James stood his ground against Wrex, not flinching as the krogan infiltrated his personal space.  
 “We did what we had to do,” James insisted.  
 Wrex paused and stared at him for a moment before tilting his head back. Shepard winced as their foreheads collided. She remembered doing that herself and resisting the urge to rub her forehead after. James didn’t seem to have her hard-headedness and swore as he rubbed his head.  
 “We good now?” James groaned.  
 Wrex grinned. “We’re fine.”  
 “So,” Kaidan glanced between them. “What happened?”  
   
 “Bomb disposal gone wrong,” James shrugged.  
 “He was carting that bomb off Tuchanka, or _supposed_ to.”  
 “Hey! I didn’t know that the systems were compromised!”  
 “Enough!” Shepard ordered. She glared at them both. “If you two keep this up I’ll decide it’s time to find out what happens when you try to throw someone out the airlock here.”  
 “That would be impossible Shepard,” EDI interjected. “The airlock would open and it would be a barrier similar to the windows.”  
 Shepard looked up at the ceiling. “Not the point EDI.”  
 “My apologies, I thought the information might be useful.”  
 “It might be.” She waved it off before glaring at the two of them again.  
 Wrex shrugged. “Some humans managed to get a new detonator on the bomb before pyjak here could get it off planet.”  
 “At least I _was_ there or you would have all been skyhigh,” James grumbled.  
 Shepard and Wrex fixed him with a stare that had him raising his hands.  
 “So why were you on the ship, Wrex?” Shepard folded her arms. Wrex stared at her for a moment, but she refused to back down. If James had been in charge of that mission, it was only his responsibility to get it off planet, it didn’t do anything to explain why Wrex had been caught in the blast. In fact, she glanced over at James for a moment.  
 “How many did you lose?”  
 “What?” James’ stance loosened slightly.  
 “How many people did you lose?”  
 Wrex snorted. “None, they made it out the escape pods in time. Baby pyjak there and I didn’t get out in time.”  
 “I swear they had that detonator model to practice with!” James insisted. “I should have been able to defuse it.”  
 “Was there a hidden panel?” Kaidan suggested. James stared at him for a moment. “Have a bogey wiring on top but the actual panel for the detonator is under it.”  
 “Oh Maria,” James breathed.  
   
 “See, bomb from boulder,” Wrex growled.  
 Shepard stared at them both before bursting into laughter. She would have to ask about the refilling thermal clips eventually given these two, it wouldn’t be long until there was shooting in the cargo bay.


	22. Old Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's communication day, and EDI figures out just what has been throwing off their calibrations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it's been a while since I updated this. Totally by mistake and my bad. I'll try to get better about this again. Do feel free to bug me about it on tumblr or here.

 EDI scowled at the screen in front of her. Calibrations were conducted less frequently now, yet became far more complex at the same time. She shoved one set of data off to the side. She still couldn’t figure out what was causing the issue. It was taking her, Garrus, and the engineering team of _both_ Normandies a large chunk of each day to ensure that everything remained balanced.  
   
 Communication days were the worst, and she hated to ask for help. They deserved to spend time with their families. She didn’t have that dilemma. Even Legion was usually off communing with other geth on communication days. She suggested more than once to Legion that Shepard would be more than happy to have the geth with them on the Journey, but she had the impression that they were still deciding if they wanted to come or not.  
   
 “What’s got you in a titz?” Joker leaned on the arm of his chair. “You don’t usually almost smack me in the face.”  
 EDI sighed, mentally brushing away all the requests to board. It took her less than a millisecond to add a routine to automatically accept each request. The new arrivals couldn’t really hurt anything anyways, so most of her protocols were useless unless she was looking for someone in particular.  
   
 “You don’t need to concern yourself Jeff.”  
 His movement to sit back in his chair was less careful. Something he only typically did when he was angry. She didn’t know what she had said to make him feel that way.  
 “Jeff?”  
 “You know,” his voice was oddly controlled for him. It only made her worry she had done something wrong all the more.  
 “When someone asks someone they care about what’s wrong, it’s another way of saying ‘please talk to me.’”  
 EDI hesitated a moment, partially to deal with the sudden influx of secondary messages she didn’t really want to process and because she didn’t really know what to say.  
 “So,” Jeff’s voice lightened a little. “What’s wrong?”  
 EDI relaxed a little at his help. “I’m trying to locate the source of the calibration errors.”  
   
 Jeff turned his chair to face her, a slight frown decorated it. EDI always enjoyed his thinking face, the only time she enjoyed his face more was when he had to think when he was flying. Perhaps it was only due to its rarity.  
 “I thought you told Shepard that you and Tali would figure it out.”  
 “We’re still trying to locate the central issue,” EDI confirmed. “There’s something that keeps knocking our work off as the days go by. Communication days are the worst.”  
   
 Jeff sat back, frown still firmly in place. “Does Shepard know?”  
 “Shepard has enough on her mind.”  
 EDI may have left the room at Shepard’s request, however the monitoring devices were still functioning when the Major and Commander made up. Her extranet sources suggested that Shepard’s concern now was probably due to the Major’s health, but she postulated that any future conflicts were less likely to be explosive.  
 “If it gets worse, you’ll let her know though right?” Jeff seemed oddly worried. It didn’t help that she couldn’t give him her full attention either. Someone kept trying to ping her.  
 “One moment.”  
 She started going through the logs and paused over a few in particular.  
   
 Samara requesting information for Commander Shepard  
 Samara pinging location  
 Hackett requesting information for Commander Shepard  
 Hackett requesting information for Major Alenko  
 Ashley’s presence is no longer sensed in the port observatory  
 Samara requesting permission to come aboard  
   
 She glanced apologetically at Jeff for a moment before directing everyone everywhere. She wished that they could have had this conversation when her processes weren’t in high demand.  
 “EDI,” Jeff’s voice dropped slightly.  
 EDI kept a part of her attention on redirecting people as she answered. “There are several requests for communications Jeff, and your question deserves more attention than it would get at this moment.  
 He sat back with a huff. “Right, anyone I should know about?”  
 “Samara and Admiral Hackett have requested information about Commander Shepard, Hackett also requested information about Major Alenko.”  
 “No shit! Samara? I thought she would live for forever or something!”  
   
 EDI ignored the impossibility, somewhat used to Jeff’s tendency to use hyperbole now and connected to the starboard observatory.  
 “Commander Shepard, Justicar Samara would like to talk to you. You can find her in Engineering, she’s currently conversing with Tali.”  
 “Right, I’ll be right there,” Shepard’s voice echoed. EDI regulated the observatory to low priority while Kaidan replied as well.  
   
 She turned to look at Jeff, letting her location notifications continue in the background.  
 “Tali and I believed that it would be best to try and isolate the problem first before bringing it to Shepard’s attention. She has her own… concerns.”  
 “You mean Kaidan.” Jeff grimaced. EDI dipped her head. She still couldn’t believe the extent that Kaidan had suffered while Shepard was dead. She had only gotten a glimpse when they, mostly Jeff, had convinced him to tell Shepard. She felt like an outsider looking into his life. The thought that Jeff had been going through something similar while she was gone… hurt in a strange way.  
   
 “It’s a pity,” EDI decided to change the conversation. “I would enjoy seeing Samara meet some of the old crew.”  
 Jeff snorted. “Yeah this entire thing is kinda neat. Especially since I get to sit back and listen to people going ‘You were working with _who?_ ’ It’s a little hard to top Commander Shepard on that list though.” He shrugged. “There’s always interesting things when different technologies mix though, like you.”  
   
 EDI paused. Mixing technologies. She minimized her processing power currently dedicated to run a scenario.  
 “Jeff, you’re a genius.” She started opening comms to Engineering to talk to Tali.  
 “Well, not that I don’t know that, but what did I do?” Jeff twirled the chair around to look at her.  
   
 “EDI?” Tali glanced at the comm. “Is something wrong?”  
   
 She spoke to both him and Tali at the same time. “Jeff aided me in formulating a new theory. It’s the mix of people. Their energies sustain the space around us. Except that there are three different crews, with three sets of memories.”  
   
 Tali smacked her head. “The energy is getting confused between people that knew the SR1, the Cerberus SR2 and the retrofitted SR2. Keelah. How can we even fix that?”  
 EDI cringed inwardly when she noticed Shepard’s head turn away from Samara towards Tali. They would probably be hearing from her later.  
   
 Jeff stared at her. “Wait, so the reason you’re having so much trouble with calibrations is because we’re all one big happy family?”  
 EDI nodded slightly and started running a few possibilities. Perhaps she could talk to Kalahira as well to see if there was a way to equate the energy.  
 “I’m running some simulations now. There are a few ways we can go about it, however—”  
   
 “I’ll get Garrus to help me and we’ll take care of most of the calibrations,” Tali reassured her.  
 Shepard approached the console. “What’s going on?”  
 “Oh, EDI and I were just figuring out some underlying issues that have been going on for a while now.”  
 Shepard tapped her foot and EDI was almost certain that she would insist on knowing everything now.  
 “And?”  
 Tali fidgeted.  
   
 “Hey EDI, are you still with me?”  
 EDI resisted the urge to roll her eyes and smiled instead. “When am I not with you, Jeff?”  
 “When I’m off the ship?” He grinned widely. “So you got it figured out? Are you going to let the Commander know?”  
 She had to wonder at his timing a little while Shepard was demanding the exact same thing.  
   
 “There isn’t anything to do about the underlying cause, but we can mitigate the issue so that calibrations won’t be as difficult,” she answered both of them at the same time. She took their moment of silence to flip through a few more of her notifications. In a sense it might be a good thing that she didn’t have many people she was particularly close to. It meant that she could focus on making sure that everything ran smoothly and she wasn’t missing out on much.  
   
 “Give me a report later,” Shepard ordered. She concurred and arranged to give Tali and Garrus permission to her core. She trusted that they wouldn’t change too much while she analysed the possibilities.  
   
 “Mitigate huh. Too bad we can’t just show everyone pictures with ‘Hey! This is the actual Normandy now’,” Jeff joked.  
 EDI shook her head slightly. “The memories would only be temporary; their own memories would be too ingrained. I feel that the way it works is far more complex than that.”  
 Jeff sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Yeah but that doesn’t mean that you should suffer for it.”  
 EDI sat back and looked at him for a moment. “What do you think Shepard would be able to do about this Jeff?”  
 He threw up his hands. “I don’t know! Ask Kalahira about it or something!”  
 EDI crossed her arms. “I believe that Kalahira is already aware of this, it would explain their extended presence during transfer periods and communication days.”  
 She didn’t know why Jeff was so angry, enough that he got out of his chair and was pacing around the cockpit.  
   
 “Why is Joker pacing?” Shepard raised an eyebrow, slowing as she approached the cockpit.  
 Joker stopped and stared at Shepard, EDI knew he would tell her, even as she hoped that he wouldn’t.  
 “You need to find a way to help EDI.”  
 Shepard raised an eyebrow, her posture relaxed slightly. EDI noted that her tension levels remained constant though, perhaps she was hoping to pacify Jeff with her body language. “What’s the problem?”  
 EDI opened her mouth to deny any problem, at least to deny that Shepard could do anything about her problem.  
 “I can’t lose her again!” Jeff yelled.  
   
 EDI felt more than a few of her processes blank out for a moment. Kaidan slid around Shepard to take Jeff around the shoulders and lead him out. She was left with Shepard in the cockpit.  
 “Do us a favour, and don’t listen in on them,” Shepard suggested with a sigh.  
 EDI shifted slightly. She still didn’t quite understand why he was so upset, and why he thought that a minor calibrations error meant that he was losing her.  
 “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on and I’ll see if I can help.” Shepard leaned on the nearby wall.  
 “But you can’t,” EDI frowned. “The issue behind my calibrations isn’t something you can change.”  
 “I meant you and Joker,” Shepard smiled. “But why don’t you tell me that anyways?”  
 EDI sighed. She should tell Shepard; at the very least so she would have some context for Jeff’s behaviour.  
   
 Request for return transfer. EDI absentmindedly accepted.  
   
 “Tali and I have been trying to find the source of calibration errors. It’s abnormal for the Normandy to require such frequent upkeep.”  
 Shepard nodded, EDI found herself almost wishing that she would say something.  
 “Jeff mentioned the mix of crews and it occurred to me that the energy of the crew maintains the space, but the energies might not agree on the correct depiction, resulting in errors.”  
 Shepard raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, but still said nothing. EDI found herself moving her hands back and forth. It was unusual for her to feel nervous.  
 “Jeff asked if I would tell you, and he was rather insistent about it. However, I don’t see any course of action that you could take in that regard. Then he got angry.”  
   
 Shepard tapped her foot, likely thinking about exactly what to say to her. She was a little tempted to use the time to listen to what Kaidan and Jeff were talking about in the meanwhile.  
 “Maybe he’s worried that your own energy gets confused.” Shepard’s suggestion pulled her back from the temptation to eavesdrop.  
 “I don’t understand.” EDI tilted her head slightly.  
 Shepard waved around her. “There’s a lot to you, EDI. Some of the people that have left… they felt like they were getting muddled, forgetting themselves.”  
 “I wasn’t aware of that information.” She clasped her hands behind her back. If Joker was there when Shepard learned about it, it would make sense that he was angry.  
 “My core processes are different from the systems that require calibration.”  
 “Yeah, but does he know that?” Shepard raised an eyebrow.  
   
 EDI paused as she swept through her memory banks. “It would depend on if Jeff read the manual.”  
 “Which he probably didn’t.”  
 “No,” EDI agreed. She folded her hands in front of her. “What can I do? What if…” What if he was right and she was risking herself, risking _them_.  
 Shepard shrugged. “We’re all taking a risk honestly, waiting for so long. Just make sure you talk to him.”  
 “Like you’ve been talking with Kaidan?” EDI prodded. She was only somewhat aware of their tiptoeing. Shortly after Kaidan admitted his errors, Shepard and Kaidan spent a communication day at the memory of Kaidan’s home. She had made certain to let Jeff know.  
   
 Shepard coughed. “Kaidan and I… we’re taking it as it goes.”  
 “You miss him still?”  
 Shepard ran a hand through her hair. “He’s still scared of something, and I’m scared to ask him what he’s scared of really. It seems like everyone on this ship has a lot of talking to do.”  
 EDI smiled slightly. “I suppose that we all have to start somewhere. I will see what can be done to lessen the calibration issue. I feel that Kalahira is helping subtley.”  
 Shepard nodded. “Keep me updated, and EDI?”  
 “Yes Shepard?”  
 “Thanks for everything.”  
   
 EDI wasn’t certain what Shepard meant, but nodded and turned back to her systems. She would have to pause her simulations when Jeff returned, but until then she would have to check a few scenarios to see which would be best.


	23. Flare Ups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan decides he's overdo for a nice chat with Chakwas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry for how long it took me to post this.  
> No excuses. I'm going to try and get back to regularly posting. Please bear with me and thank you for all the continued support.

 Kaidan pressed his fingers against his temples. He was glad that he didn’t get migraines here, or he was almost certain that he would have one. Joker was proving to be particularly stubborn, resulting in more than a few glitches in the Normandy while EDI freaked out. He didn’t completely realise how much work she did to maintain the environment until the two of them were highly stressed.  
   
 Shepard was confused too; he could see it in the sharpness to her actions. Her movements were smaller and more precise. If he didn’t know better, he would think that they were about to land on a hostile world. Instead they were trying to get Joker and EDI to make up.  
   
 Frankly, he wasn’t entirely sure what the cause was. Shepard seemed to know but her actions suggested that she and EDI were working on this for a while with no results. In fact, it seemed to have made things worse. It meant that he was currently tiptoeing around Shepard and Joker. The two people that he loved the most were also the two people that he was currently avoiding in the medbay.  
   
 Chakwas only shook her head slightly with the smallest smile when he came by. He felt a little guilty for not dropping by to talk to her earlier, despite everything she had done for them.  
 “Trouble?” Chakwas sat across from him, already pouring some of the unending Serrice.  
 Kaidan gave a wan smile. “What would make you think that?”  
 Chakwas hid a larger smile behind her hand and watched him. That was what he liked about having Chakwas as the CMO, he decided: She was always there, and no matter how much he or Joker would fuck up she would make sure they bounced back before giving them the medical low-down. Complete with a lecture for how he should _really_ know better.  
   
 He did. Back then, there were just days that he didn’t really care.  
 “I’m thinking we need some time apart,” he admitted.  
 Chakwas snorted. He glanced at her, but it seemed that she wanted him to continue.  
 “Things are just… tense right now.”  
 “They were tense the moment you died,” Chakwas pointed out. “What changed?”  
 Kaidan winced and rolled one of his shoulders back. “Shepard _and_ Joker are tense. I… wasn’t really sure where to go.”  
 “So your feet led you here.” Chakwas took a sip of her brandy. “As always.”  
 “Was I really in here that much?” Kaidan didn’t think that he had been in the med bay very much for the last few years of his life. However, he recalled that was with a different CMO, one that had thrown him under the bus with one mistake. It was a little easier to think about it after Shepard accepted that he had made a mistake, but it wasn’t only _his_ mistake.  
   
 “If it wasn’t you, it was Joker. Although you two might not have realised it all the time. Captain Bailey had me on speed dial for a while.”  
 Kaidan stared at her, he really hadn’t realised that they had been that bad.  
 “Mind you,” Chakwas continued. “Half of those he was just worried about everyone. Especially after that mangle of a memorial.”  
 “Shepard would have thrown a fit,” Kaidan smiled slightly. He didn’t remember much of the actual memorial; grief was locked in his skin at the time. He did watch a few of the news vids afterwards though and wanted to rip the electronics apart.  
   
 “It was horrible,” Chakwas laughed. “The only good thing was that Liara managed to blackmail enough people so that it was one of the time capsules placed on the Citadel instead of a giant statue of Shepard.”  
 “I could imagine if she saw it later, she would make this face…” Kaidan chuckled.  
 Chakwas leaned forward. “It is good to hear you laugh again.”  
 He sat back, eyes wide at her words. He had laughed after Shepard died, surely. He knew that Joker tried to keep his usual humour, so surely he had laughed at some point.  
   
 “There weren’t even many smiles after the war,” Chakwas pointed out. “Even less laughter.”  
 Kaidan sat back and looked out the window to the mess. The more he thought about it, the deeper his heart seemed to sink.  
 “It’s not a bad thing, Alenko.” Chakwas laid a hand on his arm. “Having a connection that strong to someone isn’t horrible. You didn’t let it define you.”  
 “But I did.” He frowned.  
 Chakwas snorted and folded her arms. “Then what was Horizon? Mars?”  
 Kaidan felt his fingers twitch. He regretted those, more for not believing in Shepard than anything.  
 “You made the _right_ call, Major.” Chakwas’ eyes seemed to bore into his own. “Even Shepard believes that. She might have been pissed, but if you had been there… Too much would have changed.”  
 “Like what?” Kaidan found himself saying. The only thing he could think about was how Shepard wouldn’t be watching him with wary eyes.  
   
 “You would have been discharged, dishonourably. The Normandy would have stayed grounded, James would have been long dead and Shepard would have just trampled over everything in her path because she couldn’t save anyone.”  
 Kaidan’s arms suddenly felt heavy and his head pulsed slightly.  
 “You made the right call Major. You did well in the long run.” Chakwas’ voice felt like a balm. “Shepard might be angry when she finds out everything, but it will because she feels responsible.”  
 “But it wasn’t—”  
 Chakwas held up a hand to cut him off. “It doesn’t matter. Every little thing wrong with us, she takes affront to. We’re her family, and the best one she’s ever had.”  
   
 Kaidan gave her a little smile. He didn’t hate his actions, but rather what his actions did to Shepard.  
 “What did the LT do now?” They both turned around to see Ashley leaning against the door. “Feeling guilty over something he shouldn’t again?”  
 “No,” Kaidan answered as Chakwas answered “Yes”.  
 Ashley glanced between the two of them. “I’m going to go with the Doc on this one. Chances are you’re overthinking. You do that you, know.”  
   
 Kaidan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. It was true that Ashley was forever shoving him to _stop_ thinking so much. It wasn’t exactly easy to turn off though. He spent so much of his childhood forcing himself to think, to control his actions. He sometimes wished that it would be easy to go backwards.  
 “You’re still doing it,” Ashley accused.  
 “Sorry,” it fell from his lips before he could stop it. He grimaced as Ashley’s typical replay spouted from her lips.  
 “What are you being sorry for?” There was a familiar teasing lilt to her voice. The first few times he had said it, she had been almost offended. “That’s better.” Ashley smiled. “You aren’t thinking as much now are you?”  
 Kaidan cracked a smile. “Always eager to please.” They glanced at each other for a moment before breaking out into laughter.  
   
 Kaidan barely saw Chakwas smiling and leaving them quietly. He felt slightly grateful. It felt like ages since they had spent time alone. At least now she couldn’t tease him about his crush. Instead she’d probably tease him about his actual relationship with Shepard.  
 “How did your family make out?”  
 Ashley’s smile fell slightly. “Sarah had a hard time, but really Kaidan? Out of every possible topic to talk about you actually want to talk about the Reaper war again?”  
 Kaidan grimaced, she had a good point. “Clearly my social skills still need improvement.”  
 “You just need more practice,” Ashley assured. “Hopefully with someone non-military. You should come chat with some of my family more. I mean, Sarah may have dated military but she isn’t one herself. It would be a good bridge between the two.”  
   
 Kaidan folded his arms and gave her a flat look.  
 “What? It’s not like I’m trying to set you two up!” she protested.  
 “I didn’t know you like to see my foot in my mouth that much, Ash.”  
 She shrugged. “It looks good on you. It might remind Shepard of how endearing you can be.”  
 “Are you suggesting something in particular or just trying to cause trouble?” He frowned slightly. Ashley didn’t usually like to fish for information, and this was starting to feel like she was aiming for something in particular.  
 “Honestly?” Ashley linked her hands behind her back.  
 “Honestly.”  
 Ashley’s eyes slid slightly to the side before darting back to him. “Something happened between you and Shepard. I don’t know if it was Horizon, Mars, or something else. There’s just this weird vibe and awkwardness like when you two didn’t know each other. Except now you’re both equally awkward and putting your feet in your mouths.”  
 Kaidan swallowed. He knew that they had been obvious, but it must be bad if Ashley was telling him about it. “I… we know. It’s…” He closed his eyes to try and school his thoughts.  
   
  “I don’t really care what it was.” Ashley’s voice cut through before he could start thinking. “What I do care about is that it feels like there’s a brick wall between you two, and then a while later it will feel like saran wrap.”  
 Kaidan grimaced. He didn’t know what was worse; Ashley’s imagery or the fact that she was right. He opened his mouth before shutting it promptly at her warning glare.  
 “I said I don’t care why,” she repeated. “Just tell me if you’re banging your head against the brick wall or not.”  
 Kaidan furrowed his brows. Her mixed simile was starting to get a little confusing.  
 “I don’t want a wall between us,” he stated slowly. “If that’s what you mean.”  
 Ashley shrugged. “Not quite but it will do.” Her posture relaxed. “So, I heard you got promoted.”  
 “I didn’t want it.” He paced the room. He could still hear Anderson’s voice in his head.  
   
 “We needed people ready to face the Reapers on the ground, people that could keep humanity alive at all costs.”  
 The two marines swivelled to an automatic salute, prompting laughter from Anderson. "You can never take the marine out of someone," Anderson observed. "At ease."  
 Kaidan and Ashley both set their arms comfortably at their sides. It always seemed easier to be at ease with Anderson and Shepard. They were both more casual unless the situation demanded it. Or, Kaidan smiled, when they were denying something.  
 "Alenko got the promotion because I needed his feet training units to fight Reapers. It was one of the few things I could actually try to do on the downlow when Shepard returned." Anderson frowned. "He did more than a good job. Although the promotions before that..."  
   
 Kaidan coughed. Those promotions were because he had kept his mouth shut about Shepard and the Reapers. No one seemed to realise that it had been because he was hurting too much, that even thinking of her caused him pain. So he just shoved everything into a box. Those feelings might as well have been in a jack-in-the-box given how Horizon went though. Hell he probably did act a bit like a kid that was seeing one of those creepy toys for the very first time.  
   
 "It's different now though," Anderson continued musing.  
 Kaidan felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck. It felt almost like Anderson was grilling him for something, but he didn't know what yet.  
 "You know, Shepard got here not too long after I did. She was asleep for a hell of a lot longer though." Anderson closed his eyes.  
 "Sir," Ashley interrupted. "Shepard got here—"  
 "I know," Anderson sighed. "Let an old man dream. She didn't take her death well, Major."  
 "None of us ever do," Ashley admitted. She was looking a little strange and Kaidan was almost certain the two of them had set this up now.  
 "What?" He crossed his arms.  
   
 "She lost it," Anderson murmured. "Broke down crying in my arms about breaking her promise."  
 "Spent the next few days in that weird quandary too," Ashley added. "Where you kinda want to see everyone but you don't?"  
 Kaidan furrowed his brows. He hadn't felt anything like that.  
 "It sucks okay." Ashley placed her hands on her hips. "Can you imagine her? She was _relieved_ that you didn't die in that war. She was devastated here without you and that was only what? Forty days? She knows what you went through Kaidan and it isn't getting better."  
 "That's part of the problem actually," Anderson frowned. "Usually there's a steady period where you've settled down enough so that Kalahira approaches you to make your choice."  
   
 "Not settling isn't necessarily a bad thing," Kaidan argued. He wasn't sure how he felt. He had guessed that Shepard felt some loss while she was here, but devastating? He lost her twice; surely Anderson and Ashley weren't comparing the two. As if it wasn't bad enough he had two of his closest friends trying to talk to him about this, EDI wanted to join in.  
 "Dr. Chakwas and Jeff had to intervene when they arrived. Shepard's mental state is still in extreme flux. I've been compiling possible procedures that may be enacted if Shepard hasn’t stabilised by the time Liara arrives."  
 "Great." Kaidan scowled. "You're saying this is all my fault."  
 "No!" Ashley moved into his space. "I'm saying you're the only one that can actually know what's wrong, but you can't fix it with only half information!" She jabbed him in the chest. "But if you don't fix it I swear when we leave here I'm finding your ass and kicking it to kingdom come."  
   
 Kaidan knew she would too. The thing was that he didn't really know how to fix it, not really. He was different and she... she was the same again. He closed his eyes.  
 "I don't know if I can do this again," he whispered. He sank down onto one of the beds. "Everything's different again and yet the same I don't know—" He swallowed.  
 "Then Alenko, I'm going to ask you a question." Anderson was using his Commanding voice, the one that had Kaidan straightening on the bed.  
 "Yes sir?"  
 His gaze was firm, yet he thought there was some kindness he saw in there as well. "Do you love her?"  
 Kaidan's heart leapt into his throat. "Yes," he whispered. "I would die for her, I... I did everything I could to try and bring her back this time." He ran a hand through his hair.  
 "It couldn't work," Ashley commented. Kaidan glowered at her.  
 Ashley shrugged. "She was awake here; it meant her soul crossed over. She was asleep here for your two years of time. It felt like eternity."  
 "Ash." Kaidan's eyes widened. He hadn't thought about what Shepard dying might do to _her_. "I'm sorry, I didn't think..."  
 "Doesn't matter," she clipped. "You guys are reckless hardheads and the Reapers were coming. I figured you would end up on the frontlines somehow and your lives drastically shortened." Her mouth twisted slightly. "It's almost poetic."  
   
 Kaidan closed his eyes and laughed. "So, things are wrong with me and Shepard again. We're good on and off, but well..." He waved his arms around. He wasn't sure how to describe the moments of distance he felt. "What can I do to fix this?"  
 Ashley and Anderson glanced at each other for a moment before looking up at the ceiling.  
 "Well... some of the crew have a list."  
 Kaidan sighed. If he was doing this, he might as well try to do it right. "Okay. Let's hear it.”


End file.
